Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Calling All Professional Insomniacs

A recent study found that morning people are marginally more successful than night people. Complying to convention gets you a bigger paycheck than those who set their own hours. I didn't need some stupid study to tell me this, because I'm living the dream--pardon the pun. The results are indisputable, but the impetus is completely unfair.

Why is it everyone expects the night persons of the world adhere to the crack-of-dawn schedule of stock jocks and line cooks? Nights aren't the exclusive domain of drug addicts, vampires and rock stars, are they? I lead a dull and sedentary life of disabled leisure, without the pleasures of blow, fresh blood and groupies; and I'm not the only sober alive who functions better with sleep hours of roughly 3:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Admittedly, I've even completely missed a noon appointment. I'm becoming unapologetic to the point of rudeness, while watching fellow night owls make themselves miserable trying to please the majority.

My mother, for instance. She often drags herself out of bed at 8:00 a.m., Thursdays, with four hours of sleep under her belt, to take advantage of grocery store senior discount day. That's when her time's a'wastin' pals want to go, as if retirees have some place they have to be after shopping. Instead of accepting that she's under slept, miserable and suffering from sleep-deprivation psychosis--and negotiating a compromise--she's more afraid of disapproval than misery.

"It pisses me off, too, but it's what we have to do to maintain our friendships, Wendi. You're the weird one." Instead of being a compatriot, she wants me to join in the misery. "I'd rather be a well rested, slightly less bitchy person when around my friends," say I. "They should thank me for sleeping through brunch. And my name is Wendina, not Wendi. You of all people..."

It's a convincing piece of evidence that our mothers have no concept of the changing of the times. Our standards of civility are different, even for morning people. We are living in an entirely different world than the one moms grew up in, when farms actually existed, and cows needed tending, and chickens dropped eggs that needed to be snatched before they formed embryos, and crops had to be harvested before sunrise so farmhands could avoid heatstroke... and their vittles had to be on the table by dawn. Gone are complex, 1952 hairdos, aprons and perfect make-up. No more turkey in the oven by 5:00 a.m. so it's ready for serving by noon.

But I completely digressed, thanks to the hot button that is the word 'mother'. What I mean to say is, I'm hell bent on disproving those study results. I'm going to finish that book I've been writing for four years and get my ass on Oprah before she retires. Then I'm going to spend my long, lonely nights counting all the cash that'll come my way. And I'm going to start a not-for-profit dedicated to getting miserable night people the sleeping pills they need to drift off by 11:00 p.m. every night, so they can go out and make a slightly better living.

Speaking of Oprah, when does that rich bitch usually get out of bed?

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