I’ll tell you, getting up at 2:30 every morning is bad enough, but getting up at 2:30 in the morning tired sucks even more. This is more than just not being fully cognizant of one’s surroundings at a time when even most insects have the good sense to stay under their rocks. No, this is stumbling like a drunk for a good twenty minutes tired.

I’m glad I don’t have hemorrhoids, because then I’d probably be running the attendant risk of brushing my teeth with ass cream every morning as I fumbled through the drawer of human condiments in the bathroom. Let me warn all and sundry right now that neither bacitracin nor zinc oxide make for savory dentifrices.

Thankfully, I am generally awake once I get into my car. If I’m not, at least the streets in my subdivision are lined with many soft buffers like plastic trash bins, fiberglass bumpers, and mailboxes that guide me, nudging my chariot ever so gently towards the interstate. Once on the dark, dark freeway, I have to be awake and alert. The last time I wasn’t aware of my surroundings, I was actually quite awake, listening either to music, or the mellifluous voice of Bob Edwards on NPR, and I got lit up by The Man, who was in no mood to split hairs about, or provide any slack, regarding the extra 22mph propelling me down the road. That was fun.

It is interesting, though, driving around at 3:00 every morning. Little things to see. The guy at the end of the street who always has his upstairs bedroom TV on, but no lights. The people a couple blocks over who I see playing billiards in an always brilliantly-lit rec room of sorts on their second floor about every other day. The cop who’s always driving past this one particular gas station just as I turn my last corner before the freeway.

Interesting, to be sure, observing this confraternity of the wee hours, but it still SUCKS to drag myself out of bed that early.