Monday, Monday – Can’t Stop That Day

MONDAY MORNINGS JUST AREN’T THE SAME AS THEY USED TO BE. When I was a kid Monday morning used to start on Sunday when there was a scramble to make sure that all my homework was finished. I’d had all weekend to do it, but it would be Sunday evening before I’d even look at it.

When I finished my education and got into the real world where people actually paid you to be somewhere on Monday morning things got rougher. How rough depended on how stupid I was over the weekend.

During those times when I was holding down the dreaded “Day Job” I was doing so because I was working onstage somewhere on Saturday and Sunday nights. That made for some late nights which were, in reality, early mornings. My Sunday night could easily drawl on until 4 or 5 AM. When you have to be “on the job” at 8 AM things could get ugly around the office.

On one “Temp” job that I had I was sent to reorganize an office’s central file room. It was just me and a room filled with file cabinets and one comfortable office chair. I managed to take a four hour task and stretch out for a full day – that included a three hour nap. No one ever checked on me and I didn’t snore.

These days now that I am retired from most of the jobs I’d held over the last 50 years, Mondays have taken on an entirely new role.

Mondays are now my Observation Platforms on Life. I can sit in the corner and watch kids, and just by the look on their faces, tell if they’ve finished their homework or not. It is just as obvious with the adults. One little peek at their eyes and I can tell you what their weekend was like and if their plans for Monday included a three hour nap in the file room.

My Mondays start like every other day, with a short prayer when I feel reasonably sure that I
am, indeed, alive. That can sometimes take several minutes to determine. Am I awake or am I still asleep and dreaming that I’m awake? That’s not as simple a question to answer as one might think. It could take a couple of minutes to compile sufficient empirical data to be sure.

“Am I awake? I’m not sure?” (time passes) “Let me conduct a test.” (bend left knee) “Oh, Sweet Daughter of Darkness, I’m awake! Give me a couple of minutes to stop crying before I try a hip.”

Once I have acknowledged to God my thanks for getting me through the night I put another quarter into the Coin Slot of Life and put my brain into the game. I dress myself with my eyes open, even though my wife, the lovely and surprisingly tolerant, Dawn, sometimes thinks differently.

Fully dressed I grope my way down the stairs, head to the kitchen and, in this order, turn on the TV, start a pot of tea, scratch myself, and then sit down at the kitchen table to put together my day’s pill buffet. One of these; two of those, and a pound and a half of that stuff. With that I am ready to face the day whether it be Monday or not.

It may not be exciting. It may not feed my dreams of Fame and Fortune, but it sure beats the heck out of trying to get a decent nap sitting up in an office chair.

 

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