Everybody in my house is a morning person. Everybody but me.
Each morning, at 5:30 on the dot, my youngest is up, banging cabinets and slamming drawers, looking for breakfast. The older boy is the same way. He’s a miniature morning person, too. He wakes up a half-hour after his brother, but he’s just as happy when he regains consciousness.
It’s a good thing my wife’s a morning person, as well. If she weren’t, life in our household would be pretty ugly until 8 a.m.
As it is, every morning, I feel like a bit of a jerk. The other three members of the family are laughing, talking, and generally seem delighted to see one another after eight hours of sleep. And then there’s me. I grumble, growl and even bark occasionally. My wife usually gives me some space until I become more human, but Colby and Logan don’t let me get away with it.
The only exception to my usual morning surliness comes on the mornings when I have to get up to go hunting. It’s amazing, because those mornings generally come earlier than regular mornings. But I bounce out of bed, wide awake and in a good mood.
I know a bunch of other hunters like myself. One of my roommates in college was the same way. On normal school days, we stomped around the house, growling curses under our breath. If someone came into our house and watched us on one of those mornings, they’d think we were on the verge of brutally murdering each other.
But when we got up early to go hunting, we were nothing like that. We talked to each other. Civilly. We joked around. We even laughed.
The boys and I are planning one of those good-mood mornings for tomorrow. My wife warned us not to wake her up at 3:30, though. She explained, in no uncertain terms, that we should practice our stealthy walking well before we get to our hunting spot. Apparently, hunting mornings are only happy for the hunters.
