Morning People Suck

Or better yet, cheerful morning people suck.

I'm not a morning person. I need at least a gallon of caffeine to get me going. And even though I'm stuck in the purgatory known as the midnight shift, I still hate mornings even though to my body-clock it's 6PM.

Case in point. This morning I'm on my way home from Tazwell, and before I cross the West Virginia state line I decide to stop at a convenience store to get a carton of cigarettes. I go up to the counter and ask for a carton, and the girl behind the counter wishes me a happy Good Morning! With a toothy, ear to ear smile.

It was so saccharine-sweet it made me want to blow chunks.

How can anyone be that cheerful at 6 AM on a Monday?

I'd rather be buried in a cocoon of blankets sound asleep. At my age, sleep is better than sex.

Well, ok. I'm lying.

Almost as good as sex.

The only thing more annoying than a cheerful morning person is a cheerful stupid morning person. This actually happened to me a few months ago. I think it was in January. Early one Sunday morning I left for work around 4:30 AM because it was snowing pretty heavily and I had thirty miles to go, and had to be there at 6 AM.

So after an hour's white-knuckle drive down I-77 in white-out conditions I get off at my exit in Bastian, VA. I pull into the one gas station open at the exit to get a cup of coffee and smokes. It's snowing like a bitch out as I stumble into the joint.

The guy behind the counter gives me a big toothless grin and say: "Hey! Good morning!"

Wonderful...

But it gets worse. He then looks at my attire and asks: "You going to work?"

As Bill Engval says, I couldn't resist.

"Nah" I replied. "I always enjoy crawling out of my nice warm bed at 4 AM on Sunday mornings during a blizzard and driving thirty miles just to get a cup of coffee and some cigarettes in my work clothes. Good for the constitution"

"We do make some good coffee! Well, you have a safe drive home then!"

Jeese. Sarcasm is lost on a lot of folks.

How the fuck do these people find me?

And how do I make them shut the fuck up already?

Copyright 2005 Thomas J Wolfenden