Wake Up Call
My body’s always needed more sleep than Christopher’s, but because I’m very bad at getting myself to bed, I stay up too late while Chris plays computer games or watches TV. This means that I’m also very bad at getting myself out of bed in the mornings. I depend on Chris to wake me up so that I can get to work on time, and later in the week, as my sleep deprivation starts to build, he even has to sit me upright and put socks on my feet before I start moving of my own volition.
Naturally, on days that I don’t work, I try to catch up on my sleep. On weekends when Christopher’s friends come over for gaming, it’s not uncommon for them to arrive by 11 AM and get in a few hours of fun before they see me stagger downstairs in my pajamas at 2 in the afternoon. I spend a couple of hours vertical before I collapse on the couch with a book, and not long after, I succumb to the warm puppies in my lap and fall asleep just in time for my afternoon nap.
Today Chris’s friend Glen was meeting us at our house at 1 so that we could go to lunch with some other friends. Chris popped out of bed around 9 or 9:30, and went off to take care of the dogs and get in some game time on the computer.
I fell back asleep, and was in the middle of a very pleasant dream about my dogs when I was abruptly awakened by Chris’s voice.
“Get up!” he was yelling.
“What? Huh?” I said.
He pulled the covers off me and started pulling my feet off the bed. “Glen’s coming soon. I already collected all the trash so we can go to the dump on the way to the restaurant.”
“What time is it?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it was already time to get up. Chris and I both knew I was a low-maintenance person. It wasn’t unusual for me to cut down my morning preparations in order to extend my sleep time, so I knew Chris wouldn’t have woken me until the last possible minute.
“It’s already 11:45,” Chris said. He was trying to put my feet on the ground.
“11:45?” I screamed. “Glen’s not coming until 1!!”
Chris stopped pulling my feet. “Oh. I forgot.”
I was still half-asleep, so I wasn’t sure whether Chris thought 11:45 was 12:45, or if he had mistakenly thought Glen was arriving at noon. But Chris was busy putting my feet back on the bed.
“Go back to sleep,” he said.
“You woke me up for nothing?”
“Sorry, sorry!” He hurried to tuck the blanket around me and pinned my arms underneath, where presumably I wouldn’t be able to take a swing at him.
“Goodbye, and sorry,” he said. He headed out of the bedroom.
“And don’t come back until 12:30!” I yelled.
Posted by: ssjane | February 19, 2005 | 11:20 pm
Posted in: This Life