My Morning

Imagine this: you've worked back-to-back 16 hours days on the heels of a badass 6:00 am cycling class right after returning from a four day whirlwind trip to Chicago-Sout Bend-Chicago. In a nutshell: you're tired. Real tired. And relishing a good night's sleep for the first time in literaly one week.

So, you open the windows to feel the cool NorCal breeze and go to sleep around 11:00, mindful of your 6:15 am wake up call. All is good. Until 4:36 am, when you are jolted out of bed by the high pitched chirp you can imagine, followed by a stentorian voice saying "Warning. Low battery. Warning. Low battery."

You look around and note that it could be any one of six freaking fire/carbon monoxide detectors - or, it just might be your fancy alarm system.

Or better yet, maybe it's just an anomoly. So, you do the normal guy thing and go back to sleep.

For another seven minutes, when you are once again rudely awoken by the same message. Only this time you swear it got a tad bit louder.

So, you call the alarm company. Looking at the clock : 4:52 am. The alarm company says "It's the spare battery in the outside crawl space. It needs to be replaced. But no worries. All you need to do is hit your alarm code, followed by XXX and it will disable the alarm for the next 12 hours."

Right on. 20 minutes of lost sleep. No harm, no foul.

Back to bed.

For seven minutes, until your next battery warning/wake up call. Now you are worried about waking up your house guests (of which there are six).

Time to deal with the crawl space.

Crawl space? You didn't known you even possesed one.

So, you do what you have to do and call the House Manager (Wife) who's in NYC at 7:45 am her time.

"Who died" she asks.

"Unfortunately, your alarm"" you retort.

You grab a half dying flashlight (catching the leit motif here?) and go outside in your raggedy ass shorts, no shirt and flip flops. It is 52 degrees and 5:12 am. You find the crawl space, peel the skin off your fingers trying tp pry it open and The House Manager directs you to the battery. In the dark, you fumble your brand new phone (no, not the iPhone) and it dissasembles itself on the ground. But alas, you find the battery pack, and you disconnect it.

All is good. Despite the fact that you are at level 12 on a 1-10 annoyance scale, you are feeling somewhat good about yourself. You fixed something. You are a man.

You go back to bed with a semi smile on your face. It's 5:24. You quickly fall back asleep.

For seven more minutes.

You are now facing a dire situation. You are looking at the fire alarm, which is literally in the crevice of your cathedral ceiling, 20 feet from the floor.

Desperate times require desperate measure. You go downstairs, grab a bar stool, delicately balance it on the Wife's nighttable, and navigate a move that would make the Wallenda's proud. You grab that fu*&*^((& alarm and tear its sorry ass out of the wall. You carefully make your way down your jerry rigged ladder, recognizing that one wrong move might very well cost you your life.

You look at the clock. It is 5:43.

You stare at the clock for seven minutes straigh without blinking.

The beautiful sound of nothingness.