Morning Better Come Softly~~Or Else!

"I have a 'carpe diem' mug and, truthfully, at six in the morning 

the words do not make me want to seize the day. 

They make me want to slap a dead poet."

~~Joanne Sherman~~

I’m married to a Morning Person. I am, however, not a Morning Person. The only chirping I want to hear in the morning is from the birds—and then all I want to do is read their little birdy lips through thick, sound proof glass.

I came by my not-a-Morning-Person condition naturally. Mom wasn’t one either. But she had four children to wrangle, so she’d get up at five a.m. in order to arrive at a somewhat normal personality by the time the rest of the posse arose. Sadly, I never learned that. I am of the opinion that morning should be held about eleven a.m., wherein small, silent robots would bring me coffee and go quietly away in order to prevent me from pounding them back into their original mineral elements.

But back to my Morning Person. He begins planning morning the previous evening by grinding the coffee. He springs out of his recliner about ten p.m every night and looks at me as though a truly glorious thing is about to take place. “I gotta go grind coffee!” Willing to forgo the pleasure of this event, I sacrifice my own enjoyment and nod at his happiness, keeping my finger firmly on my place in my Kindle reader. I shove the amoeba-sized pellet of disappointment I feel at having to stay nestled in my fuzzy blanket with my book, down deep, while he streaks off to immerse himself in the joys of a burr grinder. But hey, into each life and all that, ya know? I’m sure I’ll recover.

I hear him scrounging around in the kitchen, and I know exactly what he’s doing. See, ever since our daughter’s university days as a starving barista, Morning Person has become a coffee maven. We don’t just drink one kind. Oh, no, sirreee. Morning Person keeps quart jars of beans on a specially designated shelf in the kitchen, specifically sequestered for this precious cargo. There is Yirgicheffe from Ethiopia, Blue Mountain from a blue mountain (of what, I have no idea), in Jamaica, Kona from Hawaii, and several others that change with his whim. I am given the lowly responsibility of keeping the jars full and the grinder clean. I accepted these tasks willingly because Morning Person is irascible when it comes to proper coffee preparation, and me seeing to these things decreases the likelihood that he might have a hissy fit over a dirty grinder while I am trying to read.

Morning Person finishes his grinding and sets two cups on the counter, along with a small glass for his orange juice. He also selects and lays out two unopened bananas. Now, I am of the opinion that bananas are best eaten when the skin is yellow but the fruit is still firm—only slightly ripe. Morning Person will eat a banana as long as it does not dissolve when he peels it. He is adamant that I get my daily intake of potassium from the consumption of this fruit, and so we occasionally have brisk breakfast discussions that include me making gagging noises while dropping said banana in the garbage bucket.

That’s another thing: Morning Person likes to eat in the actual morning, as close to sunrise as possible. I’m sure he evolved from knuckle-dragging dirt-worshipers who sacrificed blind, hairless bunnies at the crack of dawn. I can see them now, cackling and shambling around a huge fire, smiling - actually smiling! Gads, it defies thinking about!

Breakfast food is wonderful. Waffles for dinner can be spectacular, but I hate breakfast. It was only invented to give people who get up too damn early something to do. But, as long as Morning Person leaves me alone, and limits conversation expectations to 'hello', I toast him a bagel, because pushing the lever on the toaster isn’t in his job description, and cream cheese and its application confuses him.

But the man does make a truly amazing cup of coffee.