THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS

We…can…do…this.

What the heck is that beeping sound?

(knocks the phone off the hook, keeps banging the snooze alarm)

A voice tells me it’s my pager. My pager is black, so finding it in the dark is the needle haystack equivalent. A lucky smack knocks it against the wall, where it may or may not have shattered. The beeping continues.

Who the heck is texting me at this ungodly hour of…1pm?

Great, happy new year wishes. Thanks. Whoever you are, I hate you.

I remember once being awakened by somebody who insisted it was 1PM. I explained to them that they were on the East Coast, and that 1pm EST is 10AM in Los Angeles. The person explained that they knew how to tell time, and that it was 4PM EST, hence 1PM where I was.

Sure, I could get up and write my column. It’s a new year, and starting the year off with a flurry of brilliance might be helpful. Forget it. I wrote the column last night.

The 2010 elections? The first candidate to call me gets blistered on my blog…tomorrow.

The Bowl games? I have Tivo. Besides, does anybody care who wins the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl, the Lack of Insight.com Bowl, the Fishbowl, the RU486 Morning After Bowl, or any other game that I may or may not have made up?

Speaking of the morning after, does anybody remember the David Byrne Talking Heads song from the movie “Less than Zero? (which the temperature feels like right now, even in LA)” The song is called “Once in a lifetime.”

“This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife. What have I done? How did I get here?”

I then realize that the beeping sounds are the voices in my head telling me I am too old, even at 35, to stay out this late. I do not even drink alcohol, yet I remain exhausted.

I should get out of bed, but at 1pm, I have to be at work in 20 hours. I had better rest up.

Besides, if I get up now, and somehow stagger to the shower, and get dressed, I can make it out of my condo to go…nowhere, the stores are closed.

My birthday is in just over a week, I should pace myself.

Heck, I could work on my website. All that takes is staggering to my couch. Oh, no. My IT guy finished it already months ago. Touching anything would only screw it up.

I could go on Jdate and search for women. Not a bad idea, except that I am too exhausted to check their adams apples. I do not want a boyfriend, and am not sure that my eyes can tell the difference right now. Also, the Chicago Cannonball and I are in a relationship, and getting shot to death is not the way to start the year. She arrives in town next week. She likes to do things in the morning, so I had better save up sleep now before she forces me up before 11am.

Perhaps I can shop on Ebay. No, bad idea. Buying stuff when not at full capacity is problematic. Do I really need another mountain goat? I think not. D@mn creature gets his horns in my hide. Not a comfy way to wake up. Calm down boy, I’ll get you some straw to graze on when I wake up.

I could work on my record album, although I keep telling the world that just because my hair is long, that does not mean I am in a band. The only instrument I like is the triangle, because that tells me lunch is ready. I could work on my book, except it is in the hands of the editors. In March it had better be an instant classic, or at least the subject of some book burnings by Arabs and feminists.

I could get up and eat something. Ahh, yes, lunch. My microwave is slow, and a 5 minute tv dinner takes almost 15 minutes. I could read the paper, but it is cold outside my building where the stand is, and I can’t find any coins. Reading the paper online is tiring, and my printer is not working. I really could use the lifestyle section. It makes a great placemat for when I am eating.

If I stay in bed for only a couple more hours until 3PM, that would allow me to stay up all night so I am totally exhausted for work tomorrow. The boss might not like that plan.

Running errands…not gonna happen.

Every morning, I say a 4 word prayer to start my day. I use my elbows to try and leverage them against my bed to prop me up. I used to place my alarm clock on the other side of the room, but ripping the cord out of the wall solved that problem.

As for the Jewish brunette, aka the Chicago Cannonball, she not only steals my heart, but the covers as well. Her political liberalism is not a problem last night, although if she or anyone else opens their trap today I will be more caustic than usual because I should be sleeping right now.

Oh wait, she already left in October. Here is the note. “I tried to wake you, but that was a losing battle. By the way, you have nothing but soda in your fridge. Talk to you soon.”

She is a liar. I have potato chips in my fridge as well. Why they are there, I am not sure, but it saves having to remember which cabinet they are in. One stop shopping, I tell you, is the way to go.

Besides, I combed my hair for her last month in North Carolina. I am not doing it this morning. I am a “retrosexual (Thank you Laree for teaching me a new first vocab word.).”

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=retrosexual

I should at least have the decency to say some morning prayers.

“Hey God…those people I pray for every night…yeah those people, the same ones…look after them again.”

I briefly go back to sleep, despite every attempt to wake up. The home phone is turned off, the cell is off as well, and the pager is still shattered, in addition to being disconnected over a year ago.

There may have been a car crash outside my building followed by 911 calls and sirens, but telling everybody to “keep it down,” solved that problem. A brief nightmare of me being late for work was averted when I realized they would find me if needed.

Four tvs in the living room, and none in the bedroom. What was I thinking? Oh yeah, a tv in the bedroom would promote laziness. Besides, trying to figure out which remote to use would cause me to break them all as if they were my pager.

Ok, 3PM it is. Come on, elbows, do your stuff. Rise, young lad, rise! Awaken thy exhausted tired eyes!

Why is God shouting? Oh wait, that is my overdramatization of God.

I had better set the alarm now so I do not miss work tomorrow. I wonder where I threw it. Threw it? Oh, screw it.

Ok, time for my 4 word prayer. It has gotten me this incredibly terribly far. Time to contemplate getting out of bed.

“We…can…do…this.”

Happy 2009 all. Except for the person that woke me up earlier. Whoever you are, I still can’t stand you.

eric

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.