Don't Poke the Bear

I don't like to be woken up. I don't like to be talked to in the morning. If I am hungover (which is a very real possibility) just shut up; you are already breathing too loudly. I don't want to hear what a beautiful morning it is, and if you are standing in front of the coffee pot blocking my path you are likely to get shived. I am all about that first, fragrant, warm caress of coffee. The real nectar of the Gods. Sheer unadulterated bliss can be found every day in your first cup of coffee. You just have to learn how to appreciate it, and never, ever take it for granted.  Now this is not news to anyone that knows me. All of my friends know that you make a wide berth around me in the morning for fear of punishment worse than death.
I am simply not good at getting up. I am not really all that personable anyway, morning just compounds that dislike of others. As such it is possible that I will not roll out of bed until 15 minutes before I have to walk out the door, and it is very, very likely that I will hit the "Snooze" button on my alarm clock 17 times before I actually raise from my death-like sleep.* In short, I am not a morning person, and it is not in the cutesy way that woman who roll out of bed looking like a perfectly groomed Pajama Barbie aren't morning people. I am so cantankerous in the morning that even the cat waits patiently for me to pull it together and fill his bowl. In fact, he is such a good sport about it that he has been known to push the phone off the bed when it begins to sing the song of its people (which is the song of sadness and sleep deprivation, I might add). It is a similarly hateful, awful song as that of the lone Bluejay that has moved into the tree next to the bedroom window with the soul purpose of making sure that you never sleep past daybreak again. Isn't he an adorable, feathered little son-of-a-bitch?!

There is however, one single person that doesn't seem to think that this unharnessable wrath doesn't apply to her. And I guess she is right. That is only because I spent 36 hours tormenting her with my grand entrance into this world; which was promptly followed by 12 years of adorableness...which was followed by 6 years of unrelenting, pure evil, teenage angst. But I think that the last 12 years of being a relatively good person (in the grand scheme of things) should warrant a little understanding from the one that I call "Mother." Sadly, this is not so. Mother doesn't seem to think that at 30-years-old I am capable of setting my alarm clock or getting up when I need to. This from the woman that is late to everything. So much so that often the family tells her that functions are starting an hour before they actually are so that they only have to wait for her for 20 minutes. There is always an evening line of questioning about what time I need to get up. She then follows this up with the standard, "What time are you setting your alarm for?"** No matter the time that I state or the task that I have planned her response is always that she will set her alarm for at least 30 minutes earlier than mine...to make sure that I am up in time. Really? Thank you? True to her word, without fail she is on it. At the ass-crack of dawn Mother comes through my bedroom door like the Terminator! Bang! "You better get up! It's 7 o'clock!" "Startled" doesn't begin to describe what happens to me when this happens. My eyes snap open so fast that I am sure that my eyelids get whiplash. My whole body jerks and jolts as though it has been struck by lightening. Now this would all be fine...if I didn't need to be up until 9 a.m. My life has flashed before my eyes, there was a split second that I thought the house was on fire and we all need to run, and I am pretty sure that I don't usually wet the bed, but I'm awake....Thanks, Mother.

Then, bless her heart, she begins to talk. Not just talk...yammer. Endlessly about anything and everything that comes to her mind. She is on my heals all the way to the bathroom--where the door means nothing to her. Uneffected by the obviously irritated "Mother!" that I growl at her as I sit on the porcelain thrown and the roll of toilet paper sailing past her head she continues her blissfully happy, morning-person tirade. I don't even think that she realizes how incredibly unimpressed I am. I can never help but wonder how it is that I can possibly be her daughter. She is excited about the morning...Is that even a thing? Ugh!
I am not saying that I don't understand that there are occasions that one needs to be woken up. Like when there are Margaritas at Midnight or money is falling from the sky. Or when someone is dead. By all means, if these things are happening, wake me up. I will be much more pissed if I miss it. Also, it is acceptable to wake me up for unplanned sex, but keep in mind that I am not going to cuddle. This girl is going right back to sleep; we don't need to spoon. Get a grip. My point is this if you want to win my affection let me sleep.  I have very strategically surrounded myself with people that understand this. I have a couple of places that I visit specifically so that I can play house cat. I sleep in the spare room, get up, rattle around in the kitchen, someone feeds me, and I go back to bed. It is really a beautiful thing. If only there were more people that understood: just don't poke the bear.

* You will be able to recognize these days when you see me in yesterday's jeans, an inside-out shirt, and a bandana on my head. Just don't make eye contact. If you want bonus points tell me that I look nice. We will both know that you are lying, but I will feel better about it.
**Yes, I know that these seem like the same question. Yes, they are the same question. Yes, she really asks one followed by the other. Yes, she really uses prepositions at the end of sentences.