Zombie Mode

I've never really been a morning person.  (My sister would disagree since I'm the one who woke up and wouldn't cease talking about dreams and anything else that might pop into my head while she proceeded to finally say, "Michelle... shut... up!")  See, I become most alert (thinking best and most balanced) in the afternoon to evening (and sometimes even into the night) times.  In the morning, I may seem happy and talkative, but that's usually me just trying to wake up and figure out why I'm even awake (since talking out loud usually helps me think things through:  more talking out loud = I'm not quite completely alert).

Most of the time, when I first wake up, I have time to cope with where I am, what I'm doing, and the reason I need to be awake.  For a few nights lately, this hasn't been so.  This is my "zombie mode" time.  When I get up, but am not really awake or alert.

I've been taking care of my dog as well as my cousins' dogs while the cousins were away.  One of the dogs (Briley) gets up around 5 or 6am every morning wanting to go out, be fed... the whole routine he's used to. I had been told he was an early riser, but I don't think I fully could comprehend all that was before me.

To begin, Briley would make a barking/whimpering sound and I'd fling the covers off me.  I would let all the dogs out first (as they stampeded around me to the back door), would let Toby and Brutus back in, feed Toby in his room, Brutus in the kitchen, and Briley and Boston outside.  I would grab a drink or even breakfast (at the first of the week), wait until all of them were completely done eating, and either let them all outside for a bit while I went to lay down again or would let them all in... and go back to lay down.  If I would let them outside, they'd usually start barking at something so I'd have to walk all the way back to the other side of the house in order to tell them to stop barking and would ultimately end up letting them all back inside (when they didn't get that concept).

My goal was ultimately to get Briley to wake up later and later each day.  It almost started happening... but it was only a week and with his internal clock, I would need more time.

As the week progressed, the fire alarms were beginning to need new batteries.  If you've ever been around them when their batteries are running out, they make a terrible beeping sound.  (In the bush, these annoying sounds are usually roosters that do NOT crow right as the sun comes up, but rather before it.  You can't just take their batteries out, but that's another story.)  Finding which alarms that are going off can be tricky.  Most of the time its simply infuriating.

Now we come to the part where I actually start telling you what happened.  (Thank you for your patience.)  One night, I awoke (around 4am) to a beeping sound.  I slung the covers off and started saying things like, "I'm going to find that thing and kill it!!! ...at least kill the battery since its almost dead anyway... and while I kill it, I'll try not to rip the thing out of the ceiling and end up paying lots to fix it along with crawling to the hospital because I'd have fallen off of this swaying, wooden ladder..."  Yep, I mutter and do lots of run-on sentences when I'm in my "zombie mode".  After getting the dogs outside, then inside to feed, and outside so I could figure out where the sound was actually coming from, I ended up disarming the alarm system (that beeps sometimes), taking three different fire alarm things down from three different rooms, and for a few times (to avoid having to use a ladder to reach the carbon monoxide beeper --just in case that's what was making the sound) found myself putting on super high heels and using another shoe to reach the button my cousins told me to push if it ended up being that beeper.  (Hint:  I'm not yet balanced in the morning... at all--especially while wearing high heels.)

On the night of July 4th, the dogs had barked and growled at something right before I was going to bed, so I put the alarm on.  I wrote a message on my arm/hand to turn it off before putting the dogs outside in the morning.  The morning of July 5th, Briley did his bark thing, I flung the covers off, went to the back door (accompanied once again by the mob of dogs around me), and opened the door.  Immediately, I remembered.  An alarm was sounding all throughout the house.  I know the neighbors could hear it (at 5:15 in the morning).  I, suddenly being more awake than in my zombie mode, ran to the box that turns off the alarm, punched in the numbers still on my hand, and still heard my heart beating outside my chest as the sirens stopped howling.  (The next night that I put the alarm on, I made sure to put high heels and other shoes in my way so I'd either trip and remember or would see them and remember=TURN OFF ALARM FIRST.)

Still on another night, I had a dream.  I was simply spitting (like in a sink or something).  I was confused a bit as I realized that it wasn't falling straight down into the sink, but sideways.  I became semi-aware that I was (in reality) spitting on my pillow!  I cleaned it off immediately, and realized it was about that time that Briley would be waking me up again.

After this, I kind of decided I had just about lost it ...or that there is a problem with me being made to get up at those hours of the morning.  You choose.