Another day.“Rise and shine!”Yeah, right.Right now its Saturday; its the morning of course and I just remembered that my English teacher expects that I turn in the second portfolio of the year. As I look over at the time, I realize that I now have a topic to write about.I have read that aspiring writers should write about what they know. That’s easy. All I know right now, indeed everything I’m aware of at this early hour centers around an insidious little device on my night stand. How could I do otherwise?A disclaimer: I suppose I could easily blame myself for most of what follows, but what would be the fun in that? The secret of life is to bitch and moan about every little thing that bothers you. You’ll die lonely but satisfied that you’ve said your piece.Anyway, where was I?Oh yes, that machine next to my pillow. Which shall remain nameless. A few minutes ago I was happily lying unconscious in my bed. Right now I’m groggy and wondering if any local Swedish masseuses make early morning calls. Any method of waking up must be better than the wall of sound that shatters my sleep and makes the first few thoughts of my day creatively violent and unpleasant.I am not alone in my misery, of course. We all regularly suffer from this self inflicted punishment for some reason. This makes me wonder how mankind ever got along without these machines. Has there always been a compelling reason to get up early? Primitive man rose with the sun to hunt for food and later farmers woke with the roosters to start working a full day on the land. Today we are free from both responsibilities and we usually sleep in dark roosterless rooms. So why can’t we sleep late?The tendency to get up before the sun rises is not a virtue. I believe the saying should have went, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy.... and boring as hell because he is dead on his feet.”Manuf...
