I DON’T DO MORNINGS

 Mike Nettleton

 I’m not a morning person. That’s a shoo-in for the understatement hall-of-fame. It would be inducted in the same ceremony as “Mitch McConnell looks constipated,” and “pumpkin spice in coffee is an abomination.”

I’m more of a late-mid-morning-creeping-up-on-lunchtime person. I require processing time before I lay claim to human being status.

Oh, I still get up early. Years of performing morning radio stripped the gears on my body clock. Sleeping in means pillow wrestling until 6:15. But opening bloodshot eyes doesn’t translate to sharply honed reality coping skills.

M’lady is a morning person. By the time I drag my rear end down the hall to the breakfast table, Carolyn has likely started a load of laundry, received and answered half a dozen texts, checked her e-mail, eaten breakfast, read the paper, written three pages in her current book, and installed a new carburetor in the neighbor’s Plymouth. (Okay, I made that last one up, but it wouldn’t surprise me.) I, on the other hand, can almost manage nuking water for instant coffee and tossing a slice of wheat bread in the toaster oven. Remembering I have to turn the little knobby thing to create heat takes a little longer. 

“Good morning, sweetheart!” She chirps, smiling and patting my arm. “How’d you sleep?” 

“Bmurfbgle,” is my witty and urbane response.

“Good,” she beams. “Wipe the drool off your chin, dear.”

She consults her handwritten list and recites her plans for the day, several of which involve me standing upright and exhibiting some semblance of muscle memory. I nod, knowing any indication of resistance will end badly. My personal mental to-do list begins and ends with deciding if I’ll stir in the coffee creamer clockwise or counterclockwise. I listen for the smoke alarm to signal my toast is ready and calculate the time until my afternoon nap. Who says I can’t multi-task?

My body clock issues began when, out of economic desperation, I accepted an offer to host a misnamed wake-up radio show in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Until then I was strictly a graveyard shift or late afternoon kind of pronounciator.

In pursuit of a paycheck, I found myself driving to work at 4:00 a.m. with frigid wind blowing in wide-open car windows, singing at the top of my lungs. This training regimen not only helped get my blood pumping but led to several interesting one-on-one encounters with Albuquerque police officers. My backfiring Mazda misbehaving as APD was keeping an eye out for an armed robber led to me being sprawled across the hood of my car and being groped by the head-frisker-directly-in-charge.

Arriving at work, I’d scrape the ice off my mustache, swill the first of multiple cups of toxic metal urn coffee, and doze at my desk. At a few minutes before 6:00, my on-air partner would zap me with a cattle prod and away we’d go to the studio.

There, I’d drain my seventh coffee, take a deep breath, and start my snappy deejay patter.  “Bmurfbgle,” I’d tell my vast listening audience. (Or perhaps my listening audience was only half vast. I don’t quite remember.) “Mmmkrffuffmub.”

Getting in the swing of things, I’d then mentally assemble several coherent sentences. “6:05 in the Land of Enchantment. 37 degrees. Let’s get things going with the Bee Gees. Oh, and don’t forget to Nyaaaarlgurg.” I’d meant to say “boogie down,” but hey, it was early.

I’m retired now, so this particular morning I rescue my toast without a visit from the fire department and swig my caffeine delivery liquid. My head begins to clear, and I gather my wits to speak my first complete sentence of the day. Carolyn smiles, awaiting the dropping of a pearl of wisdom.

“Have you . . . Have you . . .?”

“Have I what, dear?” she asks. “Made the bed? Yes. Ten seconds after you were out of it. Swept out the garage? An hour ago. Made banana bread? Next on my list.”

“No.” I scold, then stab the newspaper with my finger. “Have you read the obituaries?”

She gets that puzzled look on her face I adore so much. “Right after the comics. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondered,” I mumble, “if mine is in there this morning.”

“No,” she says. “But if you don’t get moving, I’ll start writing one for them to run tomorrow.”