Tyrades! by Danny Tyree

A 1986 Pantene commercial carried the tagline “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful.”

Similarly, I must ask my readers, “Don’t hate me because I’ve heard a rooster crow.”

I tend to get up at the crack of dawn, even though I eventually encounter a lot of grumpy people who wish they had the energy to show dawn their…well, never mind.

Despite working the graveyard shift from age 23 to age 37, and despite an ongoing ability to burn the candle at both ends, I am basically one of those dreaded “morning people.”

To my credit, I am never “in your face” with cheerfulness and positivity, but I confess to being one of those beings who can roll out of bed and become productive without the assistance of a snooze alarm.

I am part of a sizable group. According to research, 25 percent of people are early birds, 25 percent are night owls, 50 percent are somewhere in between and the other 37 percent took Common Core math.

My DNA helps me be a morning person, but my bladder in particular nudges me to go ahead and start my day without dillydallying. I am sometimes envious of the late-sleepers who can intimidate their bladders. (“You’ve seen how much damage I can do to an alarm clock. Now back off, bladder. I’ve got my eye on you, too, spleen.”)

It’s nice to have some stress-free time to converse with the cats, peruse my favorite online comic strips, and catch up on the laundry. I’m glad I can actually enjoy the taste and aroma of a cup of coffee without depending on caffeine as a crutch, lifesaver or defibrillator. It’s more genteel to muse, “The richest, most aromatic kind” instead of “Clear! Clear!”

I make a point of trying to read the Wall Street Journal every morning. Of course, that gives a new meaning to “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” By the time I get through reading about all the pandemics, bankruptcies and assassinations, I felt like a squirrel clobbered on the road.

If you regularly get up before the rest of your family, you carry the heavy burden of not slamming or clattering anything that will interrupt the others’ well-deserved slumber. I’m still skeptical of charges that my shoelaces replicate the sound of Thor’s enchanted hammer Mjolnir.

Being considerate can be a downer, especially when you speculate that the world’s night owls have been playing Naughty Librarian while you’re stuck with a game of “Tiptoe, tiptoe, quiet as a mouse.”

If you get up at least two hours before the rest of the household, that first hour seems like you have all the “me time” in the world. But when the next hour arrives, it’s like breaking a $100 bill. (Elon Musk: “What is this $100 bill of which he speaks? Must investigate this after building a new spaceship because the ashtrays in the old one are full.”)

Be true to your internal clock, however it’s set.

As for me, I like to feel the dew, welcome wide-open possibilities and declare, “This is the day the LORD has made. I will rejoice in it.”

Conversely, when night owls finally face the world, they tend to moan, “Holy cow! Is this what has already happened while I slept??? Hmph! Congress: we screw up more before 9 a.m. than Mother Nature does in an Ice Age.”

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Copyright 2021 Danny Tyree, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Danny Tyree welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.”