#65 - Rising and Shining

It's funny how people handle their re-emergence from sleep, that cocoon of unconsciousness that woozles our brains and makes a mess out of the best of us. The process is infinitely varied among the slumbering multitude, and I dare say, is as distinctive for the individual as his fingerprint.

We all wake to different drummers. Some crawl in slow-motion, while others bolt for the shower. There are those who don't talk much, and most, I would venture, aren't worth a damn until they've had their coffee. I’ve observed that just about everybody looks like a bomb went off, and all too often their mood and breath match those of a rhino. For all the good sleep is supposed to do for us, it sure doesn’t look it in the morning.

There are certain parameters to go by in judging the waker-upper, such as mental acuity, outlook and speed. Mental Acuityhas to do with whether or not the victim has any idea on Earth who or where he is the moment he wakes up, whereas Outlookrefers to the characterization of the rising sleeper as either cheerful or angry, pleasant or shark-like. Speedis the measure of not only how fast one achieves a bolt-upright position, but how convincingly he can hold it while he's easing his stumps over the side of the bed.

Another parameter, though hard to measure, is Credibility. The edge of sleep is a veritable hotbed of mumbles, lies and deceit, and just because someone claims to be awake, that doesn't make it so. The horizontal person who's "only resting her eyelids," or who says, "I'm awake, I'm awake, just let me finish this dream," is not to be believed. For if you go down and cook her breakfast, you'll end up feeding it to the dog. 

An added dimension of the credibility issue comes with the startling ring of a telephone, when the just-awakened sleeper manages to get his mouth to the right end of the telephone after first tipping over the bedside lamp, dropping the receiver into the wastebasket and trying to talk into the wrong end.  

"Gee, I hope I didn't wake you," says the caller. "I figured you'd be surely up by 6:30."

"Hell!" says the liar in bed. "I've been awake for a long time."

Just why the victim is so bent on telling this lie is a bit mystifying. No one ever believes him – you can tell by the sound of his voice. Still, he persists in his charade, and I can only guess that it has something to do with the "early to bed, early to rise" thing and that no one wants to appear unhealthy, unwealthy and stupid.

Now, I have been a family man for quite a few years now, and I have come to place a high value on persons who wake up sharp as a tack and who happily leap out of bed in one vigorous motion. It has not always been that way however. I well remember a certain person attempting to rouse her fellow sleeper that involved glasses of cold water and flying boots back in the blissful days of getting to know each other. Caution and understanding were what we learned about over the years, and that rhinos, saber-toothed tigers and waking sleepers have to be dealt with as kind of scary, unpredictable creatures.