ninanevermore

The one luxury of being unemployed is that you get to sleep late. I miss having money to blow, but I do like feeling well rested. I read somewhere that getting at least 8 hours of sleep at night is supposed to help you lose weight, but I have to say I don't think it's working in my case.

There is something invigorating about getting to wake up with the sun rather than before it. On my own, I find I wake up around 7:30 AM without a problem. The daylight is slipping through my window at that hour and it's still early enough that I don't feel like the day has been wasted. Still, for most of life - starting with my mother tossing a pitcher full of ice water on me to get me out of bed as a child when rousing me any other way failed - I have wondered why people who get up early have always been the ones to make the rules. Owls may be wise, but Larks seem to be the industrious ones that run the companies and administer the schools. I have a theory about how this came to be.

Some time back before anyone can remember, a Lark and an Owl were making plans about how things should be. The Lark showed up bright and early at the Owl's place, as Larks tend to do.

"Good morning!" the Lark said to the bleary-eyed Owl, "I've made some decisions that I want to run by you."

"Is it morning?" the Owl asked, yawning, "I couldn't tell, what with it still being dark outside. What time is it, anyway?"

"It's time to get moving! It's time to get to work!* Here's what I think: the average work day should start at 8 AM and run to about 5 PM. Of course, anyone with a commute is going to have to wake up at 5 or 6 to get out of the house by 7, but then everyone gets to go home for supper and be ready for bed by 9 PM! Then, the next day they can get up and start the whole thing over again! Doesn't that sound great?"

"I need coffee," said the Owl. "Extra strong coffee with lots of cream and sugar. It's the breakfast of the champions. 9 PM? I don't even get tired until around midnight. At 9 I'm still busy and energetic. Why on earth would I want to go to bed then? I'd just toss and turn for hours if I do."

"So you can get up at 6 AM the next day, silly! I get my best energy first thing in the morning! With my plan, I can pour all that productivity into my job until I'm ready to pass out from exhausting at 5. This is going to work out great!"

"I seem to be out of coffee," said the Owl, "How can I be out of coffee? Rats, I meant to drop by the store and forgot. Look, Lark, I don't think it's a good idea at all. If I show up at the office at 8, I don't really reach any sort of real productivity until maybe 10. Before that, I'm still sleepy. I like a late lunch, and then I reach my peak productivity around 3:30 or so. Under you plan, just when I have my hands in the middle of something and I'm revved up and at my best, it's suddenly time to go home. Dragging me into the office at 8 doesn't help me get more work done -- it just forces me to spend more time drinking coffee and praying for the weekend to come so I can catch up on my sleep."

"You're exaggerating," said the Lark, "I think you're lazy."

"I'm not lazy. I get a lot done, just later in the day than you. I think you're annoying," said the Owl, "Please leave."

"OK, but I'm setting things up without you."

"Fine," said the Owl, "Whatever. I'm going back to bed."

And that's what the Owl did. Meanwhile, the Lark went out and started the Industrial Revolution, with its set work schedules and time clocks. While the Owl did get to go back to bed that one day, he woke up to a world that lives by the Lark's rules. If he had stopped by the store the day before and bought coffee, he might have been able to argue his point better and things could be very different, but he didn't. The rest is history.

I think about this often when I put my son in his crib at 9 PM and then listen to him talk to himself and sing until he falls asleep as late as 11 on some nights. He used to go to bed at 8, but he still didn't fall asleep until 11, so I let him push bedtime back. My husband has pointed out that when two Owls mate, it's not likely that their hatchling will be a Lark. Our nest has two adult Owls, and one baby Owl. When I get him out of bed in the morning, he curls up against me and whimpers a little.

One of theses days he's going to hate that school starts so early.

It would be nice for him if all the Owls in the world united and planned a revolution to overthrow the tyranny of the ruling Larks, but it's not likely that could ever happen. Overthrowing them would require that we wake up early to toss a wrench in their crack-of-dawn plans and then force them all to go back to bed, at gunpoint if necessary. The problem is, by the time all the Owls woke up and staggered in for the revolution, the Larks would all be onto our plans and they would stop us. It's futile.

Thank God for coffee. It's the only think that makes living in a Lark world remotely bearable.

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*Another irritating fact about Larks is that they tend to use way too many exclamation points.