Quirkee.com

God, I love to sleep!  My wife is convinced that I was born in a den of polar bears, but I disagree.  I am not overly hairy and I don’t really have an affinity for Coca Cola.  I just love to sleep, and most days until twelve noon.  I work during night time hours, so it’s a necessity.  But man, there are those days when I will stay in bed past the point of hibernation.  The scientist in you will doubt the validity in that statement by adding, “In order to achieve true hibernation, one’s body temperature must be severely lowered to a near comatose state, thus causing the heart rate to slow beyond normal living conditions.”  And to you the Doubting Thomas I would say, “Aha!  But I sleep with the AC turned down to its lowest setting!”   Sure, it’s an expensive habit in Texas during the summer, but man is it worth spending twelve hours in the fetal position, all wrapped up like a cocoon!

Evidently, my whole family (with the exception of my perfectly punctual sister) has evolved from bats, squirrels, marsupials and the like.  I was on the phone with my oldest and dearest friend Mark the other day, and he brought back a funny memory. During our elementary and middle school years we lived mere blocks from each other, and my parents’ house was on his way to school so naturally he’d stop by to pick me up so we could walk to school together.  Mark recalled how difficult a task that sometimes was ever since the first day he decided to stop by.

I’d always assumed my friend was exaggerating this story, but as I thought back to those days, I vaguely remembered my mother shouting things to me from outside of my bedroom door.  I couldn't make them out at first, but she would continue to pound on it until it rattled me awake, and say something in a thick German accent, “Get up!  You’d better get’choo ass outta dat bed right now!  You gonna be late for shkool!  You got ten minnits!  You hear me?!”  Now, I’ve known Mark for nearly twenty-four years, and to this day he has repeated this story verbatim, so it’s quite possible that he didn’t make it up. 

My friend claimed that the only reason he continued coming over every morning was to hear my mom scream 'schtuff' at us in half English - either to me or my two brothers, but most times to all three of us.  I asked, “You sure it wasn’t to catch my mom in that hot, flowery night gown?”  Ignoring that remark, he also added, “That, and the fact that you guys had that big floor model color television.  I’d just sit there watching cartoons while your mom ran around the house screaming at everyone like they understood German.”

After hearing his version of the story for so many years, it dawned on me that there were a few pieces of important information that he continued to leave out.  To begin with, Mark only liked watching “The Three Stooges” (a black & white show), yet he said he loved our big ‘color’ television.  The TV theory wasn’t holding water with me anymore!  I also happened to know that Mark had had a two year crush on my older sister, and when I confronted him with this he agreed that she really was the biggest reason he came over every morning.  Only three years ahead of us in school, Diane always had a job, a steady boyfriend, or vocation to wake her up early and keep her out late. My best friend creeped me out when he said, “Yeah, I would have given her a job that got her up early and kept her out late.”  I was like, “Dude! That ‘s my sister!”  He said, “Yeah, but to me and every one of our friends back then, she was the hot blonde high school senior who drove a badass Chevy Nova.” 

Those days are gone now.  My sister is a bank VP and she is still beautiful, and still the most ultra-responsible and punctual person I know.  She no longer owns that badass Chevy Nova, but her two sons are both successful mechanics and engineers.  Mark and I don’t live next door to each other anymore, but we’ve always kept in touch, and he is a very well-loved and respected manager for a large book company.  My mom is still very German, and how she maintains that Deutsche accent after living in the U.S.A. for over fifty years is beyond me.  Some day I’d like to write a book infusing all of those wonderfully colorful phrases she decorates her English vocabulary with.  It is endearing, and it reminds me of my youth whenever she utters so much as a word.  It is even fun to hear her deny the above story, saying things like, “Ach, non of dat ist true.  Mark never hadt to vake me up, I was always op-und-atom before anybody!  YOO, on the uzzer hand.  You are shtill der lazy bum, Shtill shleeping until twelf every day!”

---

Tag this article:

Average user rating

   (0 vote)