Mornings.

I am not a morning person. I never have been and I’m going to hazard a guess and say that I never will be.

When I was in high school, I had to catch the bus at around 7:00 am each day. This being the case, I figured that getting out of bed at 6:00 am would be reasonable... I rarely succeeded at being reasonable. Luckily, I had my stepfather (who is very much a morning person) to help get me up and ready for my day. Most mornings went a little something like this:

Yes, he would SING to me... in the MORNING. Naturally, this filled me with murderous rage. Threatening his family made perfect sense before I was mentally functional enough to consider that, by the laws of the transitive property, his family = my family. Nevertheless, he sang happily every morning and every morning I would scream obscenities and silently curse the existence of such a chipper life form.

For a while, my hatred of any time before noon made even the word “morning” feel like poison on my tongue.

At my first full time job (the first job where my presence was routinely required during AM hours), my co-workers would walk in every day and wish me a “Good Morning,” while the only thing I was wishing was death to their peppy little souls. I usually managed to mutter “Hey,” and slap on a fake smile, but not before hoping they’d just leave me the fuck alone and give my Mountain Dew time to sink in.

Before you ask, yes, I drank Mountain Dew in the morning. You may be thinking, “But Kara, normal people just drink coffee...” Well, coffee is lame and I’m not normal. I called my beverage “Morning Dew,” and it was awesome. Moving on...

After a few months of mumbled “Heys” and Morning Dews, I began to think that my morning behavior could be mistakenly construed as rudeness. This worried me... probably a lot more than it should have. The worry began to gnaw away at me. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep... Okay, that’s a lie. I ate and slept just fine, but it was starting to bug me, so I decided that I would attempt to say those two words that I loathed so much. Here is what I thought would happen:

What actually happened when I managed to choke back my disgust and utter those horrible words was much less eventful. In fact, it was no different than any other day. I felt kinda cheated. I liken the experience to Y2K. Everyone was all, “Oh shit! Things are gonna get craaaaaazy! CHAOS WILL ENSUE!” and then when the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000, a whole lot of NOTHING happened. Yeah, it was like that.

I guess that brings me to present day. My aversion to the words, “Good Morning,” isn’t nearly as strong as it used to be, though my hatred for the AM hours is still very much in tact. Being a receptionist, actually saying “Good Morning,” and acting convincingly upbeat is pretty much a part of the job. I like to think of every day as an exercise in acting. I am honing my performance skills! Of course, I don’t think I’d be able to get away with whispering insults under my breath if I was on stage, but it certainly helps me get through the day at work.

Really though, I think my biggest problem with the morning is that I can’t seem to manage falling asleep at a reasonable hour. I’ll head to my bedroom at 10:30 pm, fully intending to go to sleep right then... 3 hours later I’m still awake, playing Bejeweled on Facebook. I know what you’re thinking, “WTF KARA?! Bejeweled?! REALLY?!” Yeah, I’m lame. Get over it. Either way, going to bed super late is a habit that I just can’t seem to break. It’s like crack... or car dancing.

I just feel sorry for the dude that ends up marrying me. If you’re reading this, future husband, get ready for a lifetime of waking up next to Satan... and unconditional love!

*Side note: As soon as I finished typing this post, I logged into my email and clicked on the spam folder to find a message from Bejeweled Blitz. This amused me.