My Own Personal Alarm Clock

I am not a morning person.

As a teenager, I could literally fall asleep standing in the shower in the morning—which could last as long as there was hot water. My parents would wake me at the horrendous hour of 5:30 am so that we could eat breakfast together followed by 20 minutes of family scripture study, followed by morning chores, followed by packing a lunch, which was followed by finally getting my bum to my first class which started at 7:30 in the morning.

I actually kept a sleep deficit log for my junior year of high school and gave up count at nearly 400 hours.

My senior year, I figured out an ingenious plan to snag an extra twenty minutes a day. I would roll out of bed and kneel beside it and assume a prayer position and go back to sleep. What parent in their right mind is going to disturb a PRAYING teenager? Exactly. I could "pray" for a good thirty minutes without interruption.

I WAS A GENIUS—or I thought I was, because now I'm a SUPERGENIUS.

These days, the school bus schedule dictates that I set the alarm for 6 am–that's including three hits of the snooze button or even five and sometimes six if they eat hot lunch and if I hit the snooze eight times they're also eating breakfast in the school cafeteria and I'm driving them in my pajamas with bed hair and crap in my eyes AND THERE ARE DAYS WHEN I ACTUALLY DECIDE TO HIT THE %$#@ BUTTON EIGHT TIMES WHEN THE ALARM GOES OFF AT SIX FREAKIN' AM IN THE MORNING.

But that's beside the point.

I've recently devised a backup plan and I'm now going to let you in on what a super genius I am.

I now drink a 24 ounce bottle of water right before I go to bed. By six am, I absolutely MUST get up and pee, and once I've peed, I'm up for the day. Crabby and near tears and certainly only marginally functional, but I am up.

Brilliant, I know.

However, there are a couple of drawbacks.

It took some time to, uh, fine tune the amount of water. Too much and I'm up well before six. Too little and I'm hitting the snooze button like a woman wearing a catheter.

When my bladder gets too full, I start to have dreams about peeing. This has ended badly only once, and without going into details—trust me, once is enough (In my defense, I was 9 months pregnant with a baby that seemed to get great pleasure out of kicking my bladder). Now, there is many a morning I wake up sweating and panting and AFRAID TO FEEL MY OWN SHEETS.

There are still mornings that I hit the snooze button and play a type of Russian Roulette with my own bladder. Bad idea. Luckily, I have yet to lose this game.

Rumor has it that all supergeniuses were bedwetters. I may be on to something!

Comments

[Lisa]

OMG!!!! I love this idea. Right now my alarm clock is a four year old. "mommie wake up, mommie, wake up, mommie, I'm hungry." Every morning at six thirty.

If the pee system starts to fail you, I'll sell this one to you cheap.

Also, don't mean to be a duh-head, but have you ever considered going to bed earlier?

[Miss Laura]

This entry title reminds me of the song "My Own Personal Jesus" and in that way it is very disturbing.

Very.

[GAF]

Who sang that? My sis-in-law has mentioned that song more than once.

They Might Be Giants?
Depeche Mode?

[Jerilyn]

Actually, it doesn't matter when I go to bed, I still can't get out of bed in the morning.

And, hello—duh-head? You need to hang out with more adults, my dear.

[Lisa]

Adults? What's that? Is that all the tall people who hang out on TV? I seem to remember something about that.

[Miss Laura]

Depeche Mode. See lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/depeche-mode/39367.html

I went to a DM show once. The boy beside me was wearing body glitter and it SOMEHOW MYSTERIOUSLY got on me.

My that was a good show for me not even really like Depeche Mode.