GranolaBox

I get to sleep in on Saturday mornings once every two weeks. Because of my commute I have to get up at an ungodly hour during the work week, and because I have my kids every other weekend I can sleep later, but it’s not really unadulterated sleeping in.

So there I lay this morning wrapped around my hot, mostly naked wife unable to sleep with a million thoughts going through my head about what I should be doing. Being a history guy, it comes down to four things: industrialization, biology, the protestant work ethic and catholic guilt.

First, the American school system was and still is designed to produce good little worker drones who will graduate from high school ready to spend the rest of their lives as productive worker bees. Therefore, despite what research tells us about teenagers being able to learn much better later in the morning and little kids being able to learn better earlier in the morning, my kids come to school at the ungodly hour of 7:20 in the morning, and I need to drive an hour to be there.

This makes me a morning person by necessity and habit, but not desire. After 17 years of this racket, I’m just conditioned to getting up and, after coffee, being pretty damn productive. Since I’m pretty programmed that way now, biology plays a hand too.

I also have an unusual religious conundrum working in the morning that gets me up too. My dad is a Protestant and a damn hard worker. My mom was Catholic and I was raised Catholic. So as I lay in bed I have the Protestant work ethic on one shoulder and its strange bedfellow, Catholic guilt on the other.

So I wake up early on Saturday morning and the dialogue goes something like this:

Industrialization and Biology: (in unison) Time to get up sleepyhead!

Protestant Work Ethic: Fine house husband you are. The laundry is piled up nearly three feet high under the laundry chute.

Catholic Guilt: That’s awful, your wife works so hard so that you have nice things. You’re self-indulgent and you’re going to hell.

Protestant Work Ethic: The grass isn’t getting any shorter you know.

Biology: God damn the Queen of the Universe feels pretty damn good mostly naked. Time for some blood down to the privates.

Catholic guilt: Don’t you dare think those thoughts unless you’re planning on starting a family. And don’t think of enjoying it even if you are. Too late. You’re going to hell.

Protestant Work Ethic: How are you ever going to have an entertaining, provocative and eventually financially rewarding blog like Dooce if you lay there after only writing one post last week. Dammit man, get up and write.

Biology: Hey dude…. it’s eight o’clock. We should have had breakfast an hour ago.

Catholic guilt: You move that hand this instant. Get out of bed and go to confession if you can’t control yourself.

Protest Work Ethic: He doesn’t need to waste his time on confession, he’s got to get his ass out of bed!

Catholic guilt: He’s going to hell anyway.

Biology: Dude, either jump your wife or go eat.

Kurt Vonnegut: and so it goes.

Filed under: General Observations on October 6th, 2007