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Whatever time I wake up, I always feel everyone else should be awake
Why...
Do Hospitals insist on waking patients up at 0:Dark Thirty?
Recently, due to a prolonged hospital stay where I was actually woken up each morning at 05:00, I now luxuriate in home visits from a nurse every morning at 07:00. So, my wife and I have been getting up at a time which in my younger nightclubbing days I would have just about been going to bed.
Before you all send me messages about how much earlier you get up, that is not the point. For me, I usually wake around 08:30 and down a heart-starting double macchiato by 09:00. Remember the commute to my office is a flight of stairs. So, for me I expect all my friends in the same time zone to be bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to talk within an hour and a half of my waking up, i.e 10:00.
Right now though,10:00 seems an eternity away from when I greet the dawn. 3 1/2 hours for European time and 4 1/2 for UK. I mean there is only so much shit, shower and shave, breakfast news, morning papers and Facebook abuse a man can take. I need human contact outside of my beloved wife!
I start to wonder who will equally be up early because of kids or gym. At least I can call friends in LA when I get up. It’s early evening for them.
...and another thing
The reverse is now also true. I can’t stay awake past 21:00. Normally we turn the light out between 00:30 and 01:00.
After an early supper, my wife and I often look forward to a ‘…’ and then some binge TV. With my back, ‘…’ is a definite NO NO. But binge watching now just consists of the opening recap of the previous episode that took us a week to watch then… boom we are both asleep.
The dogs are pretty pissed at this. They are still on PHOT. ‘pre hospital old time’. Early to bed does not work for them. They like a bit of telly and a late pee at around 23:30.
The next pee on their body clock is around 08:30 but back to bed for a cuddle. Now it’s out at 20:30 and then again 06:00. Except to be fair, they wake my wife up in the middle of the night.
There is one golden nugget in this pile of pain and sleep deprivation, though all of you who know me will think I have crossed the ‘old aged Rubicon’. I am now officially an old fart. Let’s just say we replaced our ‘analogue bed’ with a ‘digital one’.
Though a super King size bed, we each have our own mattress, tailor made to the bounciness we each prefer. If you want a concrete block firmness it’s there or you can have Angel pillows.
Once we made our choice at the shop, in my case accompanied by yells of pain… I think other customers thought maybe some S&M was being tested out, the store delivered a few days later. We got a mechanical high tech frame and mattress. Not only can we each ergonomically raise the back to preference height, we can individually raise our thighs. As icing on the cake there is another motor to alter our neck position, i.e. read a book, watch TV, play a game or ‘…’. No need to say any more.
In fact the opportunity for endless new ‘…’ would be there for the taking if only the stiffest part of my body was not my back.
“Later. An incentive to get better,” my wonderful wife winked.
...and another thing
Despite my new body clock, I am such a hypocrite as I used to go ballistic if anyone called me for business before 09:30 or after 20.00, (excluding my partners and CEO).
During a round of negotiations recently, I frequently found myself talking to people in North America at 02:00. I never found myself talking to them past 20:00 their time! Hey ho.
However, once in my more ‘lippy’ youth, a Studio Exec once rang me on his mobile at 02:00, tucking into an early supper of expensive sushi and even more expensive sake. I had been fast asleep.
Between gulps he had asked me something pretty banal about an upcoming production. He suddenly thought for a minute and said;
“Gee sorry, what time is it there? Must be late.”
Through gritted teeth I replied, “No worries, I am actually playing a very close game of squash.”
That completely threw him.
“Er… Good luck. Hope you win,” he finished weakly.
Irony, clearly for most people in LA, is just a colour between goldery and silvery.
I did however ring him back at 02:00 his time a few days later to ask him an equally unimportant question. I could feel him seething at me having the temerity of waking him at such a time for such a non urgent question. Before he could vent his anger I finished with…
“ … and the game of squash at 02:30. I won it.” I then hung up.
Funny, he never rang me after 20.00 my time ever again.
Stay safe.
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