Michael D. Davis

If I am awake before nine in the morning, chances are I haven’t been to bed yet. I am an up all night, watching movies at three a.m. type of dude.

I know very few morning people. I don’t want to know morning people. The simple act of getting up early in the morning just to get a good start on the day fills me with dread. I like to start my days off right, which means chicken nuggets at noon.

My father is a morning person. And like every morning person, he goes to bed extremely early. I mean, I don’t think the guy knows who Johnny Carson and David Letterman are. As long as I’ve known the man, I’ve only seen him stay up past midnight maybe a dozen times, and those were mostly for New Years or a presidential election.

The man has been retired for years now, but his routine hasn’t budged. The Old Man goes to bed at 9 p.m. or slightly after, every night. The Old Man then rises between 5 and 7 a.m. You can tell this has happened by the smell of burnt toast and discount peanut butter emanating from the kitchen.

Now, this wouldn’t be a problem if he kept to himself, but he doesn’t. Instead of tiptoeing around for the sake of the other three in the house still asleep, the old bugger lets his foot fall with a lead heel. The man crumples bags of chips, shakes pill bottles, and closes doors with gusto. Even this would be acceptable if it wasn’t for his habit.

Let me set the scene for ya. You are asleep; you are dreaming something wonderful. Everything is perfect. Then someone shines a flashlight in your eyes while repeating your name in a loud jarring voice.

You wake with a scream. The wonderful dream you were having is shattered and will never return. This is not the police; you are not being raided. This is not a marauder; you are not being kidnapped. This is your 70-year-old father waking you to say good morning and that he is going to go work on a friend’s tractor. In my case, at this point, I curse and find something to throw.

On the good days, he doesn’t have the flashlight and just says my name loud enough for the neighbors to hear. This has gone on for years. Decades. You would think that in his 70 years of living the man would have learned how to leave a damn note. The man does it to all of us. And why? No one knows. Can we stop him? We’ve sure tried.

I can be making a snack at 4 a.m., and I’m not talking a glass of milk; I mean cooking in the air fryer type of snack, and you wouldn’t wake up unless I stubbed my toe. But when the sun is barely in the sky the Old Man will wake ya to tell ya he’s heading up the street.

I could blame this simply on the fact that he is a morning person, but then I’d be ignoring the fact that this is just one impudent ignoramic idiosyncrasy of which the Old Man has truckloads. I mean, I have two separate heart conditions, and the man constantly wakes me up like we’re in an episode of Cops. One of these days, it’s gonna be my last episode.