Through the Circuits of Time: Who needs sleep?

It's bad enough that I couldn't fall asleep until well beyond 2 am last night...again. No, this morning was the morning from hell...or heaven, depending on if God heard me say, "When the dog wakes me up, I'll go running. That way I can beat the heat." Regularly this summer, the dog wakes us up around 7:30 to 8 am, and today it's supposed to be well over 100 degrees (and as I've wasted the last half hour blogging and sending hate emails (even more on that later) the local news has shown the temp. go up 5 degrees in my area!!!). Still, I think that I would've preferred not to be up at 6:48 am, as I found myself this morning. That means I got less than 5 hours of sleep. I hate that. While, great, I get to take a nap, it really blows, and I cannot imagine that God would really want me to have a sucky morning. I'm not Job, here. Still, as promised, I'm off to run...More on this later. (7:44 am EDT)

(9:42 am EDT) Back!!! First of all, the dog did not wake me up. No, she politely waited until 6:58 am before making a peep. It didn't matter, I was wide awake by then. Until recently, I was never able to fall back asleep after being woken up by anything. It would take hours. Since the dog, I've gotten better at it...or I'm completely exhausted. Still, there are three things that greatly annoy me when I wake up to their sound.

The first, and worst sound to wake up to, for me, is the sound of birds. For some reason, I cannot stand the sound of birds in the morning. Some people find it soothing. As far as I'm concerned, birds drive me nuts. If I hear them, the pillows are wrapped around my skull until I either fall asleep, or give up in a fit of profanity. Luckily, this morning, I heard no birds. If I had, my head may have exploded.

The other two things only happen at our condo. The first is the dumpster pick up. Garbage day, for most people, is always the same weekday. The garbage truck comes by at a reasonable hour, then a garbage man empties the trash into the truck, then the truck drives away. However, living in the condo, we never really know when garbage day is. I used to think it was Friday. Then, in the past 2 months, it has seemed that garbage day has alternated between Wednesday and Thursday. Living in the condo, we don't have our garbage cans lined up on the curb. You see, for every lot in our complex (9 altogether), there is a dumpster, plus 4 additional dumpsters in the recycling center (I don't know how many people use it, as the company doesn't actually separate the recycling). The dumpster for our building is 5 doors down, the recycling center is less than 50 yards away, and there is another dumpster about 100 yards in the opposite direction behind our condo. Did I mention the master bedroom is in the back of the condo?

Those people at A.J. Waste Systems must have a sick sense of humor. They don't care when they pick up our trash. However, it is usually before 7 am, and on any given day. During school, they seem to come sometime around 5 am (sometimes even earlier), just to get me up 15 minutes before my alarm. Today, they came right around 6:40 am. Bastards! There is a complete lack of consideration on the company's part. All I know is that my condo fees pay for this service, yet the two times I've complained, nothing has happened. All they know is, they've been paid, and don't care who they wake. I repeat...BASTARDS!

I wonder if they know exactly how loud a garbage truck is. I wonder if they know how loud a dumpster being lifted by hydraulics is. I wonder if they know how loud an empty dumpster being dropped on pavement is, or how it reverberates and echoes. Certainly, my wife and I do know these things, as everytime A.J. Waste Systems wakes us, we have to wait until all 6 of he dumpsters close to our condo are emptied and banged around. From that point (usually a 5-10 minute process), we enjoy a fainter, muffled clanging of the other dumpsters scattered throughout our complex. The regularity of this annoyance is enough to rank it number 2 on my list of noises that I hate to wake up to. You cannot begin to imagine how horrendous this is.

The third annoying sound to wake up to is the telephone ringing. However, this immediately skyrockets to #1 (yes, even beating birds) if a) the telephone rings between 3 and 7 am, b)upon answering the telephone, you hear a fax machine on the other end, c) all of the above.

Apparently, Richard Bourassa's Computer Workshop used to have our home telephone number as its fax line. Currently, both Verizon's online directory, and 411.com list my number as their fax line. Daytime calls asking for the "computer store" are bad enough. Its worse when some business or person attempts to fax this store in the middle of the night, only waking myself and my wife up.

You do the math...telephone call+middle of the night=instant panic. Then you hear it...BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! It's awful. You hang up. Then, after a 5 minute timeout on the other line, the fax machine calls back!!! Again, you pick up, then hang up at the beeping. This has happened consistently for the past 2 years. At one point, we got a call blocker, but we still kept getting the fax beeps in the middle of the night, as we couldn't block ALL of Mr. Bourassa's customers. In vain, I cancelled that option. Though the calls have diminished in number, they still come, and though the ringer in the bedroom is turned off, we can still hear the phone ringing in the middle of the night from other rooms.

This morning, shortly after the garbage men came, the telephone rang. We ignored it. I heard the message from the office..."BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!" Then it called back at 6:56 am. I got up, and looked at the caller ID (something we recently added for free to get cheaper DSL...Yes, more services for less money, go figure!). No Caller ID said the screen. So, I answered. Sure enough, I heard the beep beeps...BASTARDS!

Wife: Who was it?

Me: You know who it was.

Wife: The beepers?

Me: BASTARDS!

We had been woken up by the f-ing dumpsters AND the f-ing fax wrong numbers. I got back in bed, seriously annoyed. That's when Sydney yipped.

Me: I CAN'T CATCH A BREAK!

To have woken up to two of the most major annoyances in the world is uncalled for. After taking the dog out, I got ready to run, sent emails to Mr. Bourassa (which of course, got sent back), Verizon, and 411.com regarding the misleading directory listing, and began this entry.

I may as well be Charlie Brown, because GOOD GRIEF!

At least this made me happy this morning