Hopefully, I Won't Start Sleep-Dancing

"Look how fast their feet are moving. It's freaky."

These are the words I heard as I lay in bed last night, trying once again to ignore the sound of the television and get some sleep. In place of Morpheus' warm embrace, what I got was the sound of competitive ballroom dancing. No, seriously. Ballroom dancing. And I wasn't even watching it. I was laying awake listening to ballroom dancing.

"Look at them. He's wiggling his butt."

I gave up and sat up to see if he was, in fact, wiggling his butt. Unfortunately, due to tired eyes without glasses on, I could not discern whether such wiggling was going on or not. For that matter, I couldn't really tell where his butt was.

One of the most pointed differences between management and myself is our schedules. I am a morning person, up at a quarter to six every day. Before I leave for work, I've usually shoveled sidewalks, balanced the checkbook, and fed and dressed two kids as well as myself. On weekends, I wake up wanting to grab my (hopefully complete) to-do list and tear into it.

Management is not such the early riser, and can sleep through nearly anything. This is due to a long past career in the fast food industry, where shifts ended at five in the morning. As a result, snooze button abuse runs rampant; a one to two hour delay between the alarm first going off and her actually rising is not uncommon. I often question whether she'll be able to get up in case of a serious emergency, for example the aforementioned zombie apocalypse:

"I just heard on the radio that legions of the undead have risen and are taking over the cities."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Jesus, they're right outside! They're trying to break down the doors. Get down here and help me move these couches."

"Yeah, okay." Rolls over.

"Oh god, the baby's playing with someone's head. Hey, put that down before it bites you. I could really use some help down here!"

"Mmmm. Just five more minutes okay."

I shudder to think.

On the other hand, in the evening she's a ball of fire while I'm ready to sink into a couch and pass out. She actually plans on starting tasks after the kids are in bed. I'm talking about real tasks, like painting walls or doing taxes. My idea of a task after the kids are in bed is moving the chair closer to the television so I can reach the Xbox controller. Maybe making popcorn.

Somehow we've managed to muddle through this way for over a decade now, as I'm sure we will for decades more. Maybe one day our time lines will meet up, and we'll find ourselves equally awake at the exact same moment instead of one us being in a fog all the time. Who knows what we'll do then.

Maybe we'll take up ballroom dancing.