Mourning the Morning

Yesterday while grocery shopping I overheard a conversation between a tween aged girl and her mom.  She was looking at the salad dressing and said, “I hate mornings.”  Her mom said, “What?”  The girl said it again.  “I hate mornings”.  The haggard looking mom said, “Everyone hates mornings”.   And I thought vampires only lived in the Pacific North West!  At least that’s what my daughters and pop culture lead me to believe.  Apparently the undead are thriving in Indianapolis too.  Perhaps they like to top off a little AB positive with some Ranch dressing.  “Everyone hates mornings?”  I thought, “Way to emphasize the negative!”  Let’s also teach her that it’s impossible to get ahead in life and math is always hard.  I’m not trying to come across as a do good cheerleader.  We all have our days where it would be nice to sleep in, but come on!  Do we have to reinforce the jaded attitude in middle school?  Can’t we wait until she’s paying rent before we talk her into damning the sunrise? 

When I was younger, which makes me sound old even though I’m not according to people my own age, I didn’t like mornings either.  Morning meant I had to go to school. School was a place where they didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand their method.  It was a mutual misunderstanding yet I was the only one who recognized it that way.  They chose to see a smart kid who didn’t apply himself as opposed to a smart kid who needed to be taught math and spelling differently.  So I fell into a pattern similar to that of the salad dressing vampires.

Once my comedy career began I had no issue with mornings.  I loved what I did. I developed a productive daily routine that began early.  After I retired from comedy I rediscovered my issue with mornings when I joined the “real world”.  It only took a short while thanks to a horrid company culture cultivated by a dynamically dysfunctional boss.  Slowly the morning dread began to grow.  It peaked when I started to stress about Monday morning on Saturday afternoon.  That’s not a healthy way to be.  So I changed it. 

My girls aren’t morning people either.  They inherited it from my wife, the grad student from Transylvania.  Their dislike of mornings has nothing to do with a dysfunctional school situation.  They don’t hang like a bat when they sleep.  They just don’t like getting up at 6AM. They don’t see the sun rise as inspirational.  They don’t care that each morning is a new beginning or that morning air is the freshest of the day.  When they begin their morning routine they don’t like to talk.  Communication is carried out with a series of grunts and clicks only understood by whales and porpoise.  I’d say good morning Grace what would you like for breakfast?  She would squeak and make other throaty noises.  Then Shamu would call to see if she was OK.  Since I don’t speak whale I would say “I’m sorry I didn’t understand that.”  She would give me the look of death while enunciating it in a way that makes bagel and cream cheese sound like the “F” word.  Now I ask her the night before.  People who don’t like mornings don’t like to be around morning people because they are just too cheery.  My kids are never late to school.  They are falling all over themselves trying to get out the door and away from me.  “Have a great day.  I love you!” I say with energy.  “Screech, gribble, squawk” they moan over they shoulders as the door slams.  Ah mornings!