Although our marriage is not perfect, I feel abundantly blessed to be married to my Pat. He eats my cooking without complaining, puts up with my slovenly ways and doesn’t grumble when I treat myself to new clothes.
“Are those new jeans?” he asked just last week.
“You’re darned tootin’ they are!” I replied in my best teenage girl tone and he loved me enough to simply leave it at that.
See how perfect we are together?
Yet, if there is one bone of contention in our relationship, it is this: I like to sleep in and he thinks (and I quote) that is a bunch of nonsense.
Back in the day, I could really while away the hours in a blissful slumber. With blankets pulled up to my chin and my comfy pillow fluffed just right, I would hit the snooze button and doze until my heart was content.
Then middle age hit me and slumber began to evade me. These days my eyes pop open at zero-dark-thirty, thoughts race through my head and I lay there for the rest of the night wondering if I remembered to pay the electric bill.
But last Saturday morning the gods of slumber were smiling upon me. I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night, wasn’t troubled with a grocery list and slept with full confidence that the power wasn’t going to be turned off due to a delinquent account.
I should say here that we have never had the power turned off due to lack of a payment, but the thought of a “lights out” situation is daunting at best, especially in the wee hours of the morning.
So there I was, sleeping the sleep of a baby, all snuggled in and enjoying every minute when suddenly and without warning that beloved spouse of mine said my name.
Not in a romantic way, mind you. He wasn’t startled by a bad premonition or troubled in any way, he just said my name, “Lori.”
Now, I am my mother’s daughter and as such, am not a silent sufferer. Therefore, I responded to his name saying with an abrupt and curt “What?!”
Pat paused for a moment and surely smiled to himself as he prepared to make the statement he felt necessary to say at 6:15 on a Saturday morning, “Hi.”
I enjoy greetings and salutations. I believe in a warm and heartfelt hello when the time calls for it, but a 6:15 a.m. “Hi” for no apparent reason? Well, it was just too much. “What is the matter with you?” I asked him, and it certainly wasn’t the first time I had posed that question to him in lo these many years of marriage.
Then he asked his favorite early a.m. question, “Are you up for all day?”
I wanted to retort in my typical manner that I was not up for all day, but I knew where that would lead. He would ask me why I was not up for all day, tell me that it’s time to get out of bed, and then finish up with his favorite byline, “You’re burning daylight.”
So instead, I simply pulled the covers higher, snuggled in tighter and stuck my feet out of the blankets for maximum comfort.
But that dear and loving man of mine has the resilience of a 2-year-old and quite frankly, waking me up is one of his favorite pastimes.
“You know,” he continued as if I were engaged in this conversation, “if you got up an hour earlier every day you could get in an extra seven hours of things done every week.”
Not only did I not respond to his statement, I added in a cute little fake snore to my sleeping ensemble.
Yet, that did nothing to dissuade him.
“That’s 30 extra hours to get things done a month and now that I think about it, imagine how much you could accomplish with 365 extra hours a year! You could have more time to do things you enjoy, open another business and maybe even have time to make your delicious homemade banana bread!”
I love that man dearly, but if one thing has become painfully obvious to me it is this — since he is the one with early morning ambition, perhaps he should be the one to bake the banana bread.
Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” You can reach her by sending an email to loriclinch2010@gmail.com.