Hitting Snooze On Your Mental Alarm Clock

Can everyone do it?

I don’t know. I don’t even know how I do it.

I have a confession to make, Saturday night I stayed up almost all night. Seriously I was up until 4:00 AM. The problem was I had a flight leaving Salt Lake City Sunday morning, headed to Richmond, VA. The flight left at 9:30 AM. That may not sound particularly early, but you want to be there an hour early: 8:30. And I always park in off airport parking. It’s a lot cheaper, but requires another 15-20 minutes. Just to keep the math simple, let’s round it up to 30 minutes: 7:30 AM.i live roughly an hour from the airport: 6:30. Taking a quick shower before leaving means get up at 6:00 AM.

That’s what went through my head as I contemplated my clock at 4:00 AM. Do I just stay up? Do I head to the airport and sleep there? Or, do I go to bed and set my alarm for two hours?

I should point out that my lovely wife hates to be woken up in the middle of the night. Even one night of interrupted sleep makes her body I’ll. And on a Sunday morning, 6:00 AM qualifies as middle of the night.

I haven’t used an alarm clock in years. Well, not one that anyone else could hear.

It started when we were kids. My brother told me that he could just think of what time he wanted to wake up and he would. I tried it. I couldn’t make it work the first time. Or the second. But, eventually, I got to where I could wake up at a specific time. Okay, it was probably also because school was starting and I had to get up at the same time every morning. But, I was getting up at 4:30 to go to early morning seminary classes.

And later, I got better at it. I’ve never had trouble sleeping. I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and wake up when I need to.

Is it a marketable skill? Not really. I can just see it, “Come watch me fall asleep and wake up on cue!” But, it is one of the skills that we pick up along the way and later find come in handy. Like the guy who can add numbers in his head, or the woman who can make everyone feel at ease.

We all have skills, talents that help us be better at our jobs. And the ability to wake up after two hours was definitely a help.

You might be wondering what kept me up so late. Grapes. Once again we had bushels of Concord grapes. (The Broken Jar.) I had 5 bushels that we picked Saturday afternoon. They wouldn’t last the week that I was going to be gone. We typically get 2-3 gallons per bushel. A juicer can process a gallon per hour.

Fortunately, I have friends who also like homemade grape juice. Three juicers and and a three gallon per hour output. Add in some setup and some cleanup time and I’m smelling like a winery.

Besides, I knew I’d have a cross country plane trip to sleep. Fortunately I can fall asleep anywhere.

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.

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