OH, THE AGONY

It happens every morning. #2 Son, Michael has a deep love, a driving dedication, a profound passion for, and complete surrender to: sleep.

He was born 5 minutes later than he should have been, asking for 5 minutes more before exiting the womb.

As I write this, the boy is out cold on the couch in the den, the TV is on loud and he has 5 more minutes before he gets up, this is from the call he got 10 minutes ago. He takes this work seriously!

This reminds me of my lost youth, so long ago. I had an innate sense of time with a built in alarm clock. If I needed to get up at a certain time, not the usual time, then by golly I did, on the dot! Never failed. Mom never called me to get up; never came to the door and yelled: “you got to get up!” No, she yelled: “Clean up this messy room!”

My years of going to college, then the Long Island Railroad were based on schedules, time was important, and I had to allocate the time from the time I got up until I went to bed that night, making for very quick days, timing was everything.

But # 2 Son has us all on schedule to get him up, keep him on time, and ready to cha cha. One morning recently, he thought he had about 40 minutes before he needed to get going, when I found him outside having a cigarette.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, WE LEAVE IN 5 MINUTES!!!” said his proud father.

“What, we got time!!!”

“NO WE DON’T-GO SHOWER”

In that little time he had coffee, finished his cigarette, had a shower and dressed in time for us to get him to work with time to spare! Amazing!

The boy loves to take me to the edge, the very edge! Timing is everything. “Michael, move.” And Michael would shuffle along a little. His pace in life is such that the end of the world will have to wait until he’s ready. He should not walk along the avenues of New York City with its quick paced strollers, he will have footprints on his back in five minutes of his stepping on the pavement!