7;15 AM Human Rights Day and I was exercising my right to lie in my cozy bed rather than face the cold floor and bustle children off to school. What’s better than a warm cocoon of sweet smelling flannel sheets?
That’s when it started.
The rooster next door let out a good long crow. And then another. The crowing was relentless. I don’t normally mind the rooster. I can easily sleep through his best efforts at ruckus and he does me a service most nights. See, when I wake up to go potty I like to know whether I’m in the uphill or down hill half of the night, but my bedroom does not currently have an actual clock in it. If I go the trouble of checking my phone then I’m that much closer awake than I’d like to be during what is hopefully the middle of the night.
The rooster makes it easy. If he’s making himself known then daylight must be within a few hours distance of arrival. If he’s quiet, then maybe I had a big glass of water before bed. Or maybe I’m just pregnant.
This morning he was really enjoying the sound of his own voice. I started counting crows (heh heh) and gave up around 200. “What is going on out there?” I wondered. It was much too late in the morning for coyotes. Besides, by this time any coyote worth his salt should either have A) been home free with his feathery breakfast or B) realized the futility of the attempt and run away. But on crew (crew?) the rooster.
Honestly how was that bird still alive? He wasn’t even stopping for breath. Realistically, he should have dropped dead minutes earlier.
At this point the dog was awake so I faced the cold world to let him out.
The strangest thing though, as I moved to a different part of the room it seemed that the rooster’s cries were actually coming from inside my own house. (have you checked the children?) More specifically, from Zizza’s room.
Girlfriend, it seemed, didn’t want to miss out on a chance to watch a little early morning T.V. so she set her alarm lest she inadvertently choose this morning to sleep in for the first time in her life. However, a few minutes before it went off my alarm (read; Roxy and Duke) woke her and the three of them were off to exercise the right (granted them by their sleepy mother) to equal opportunity viewing of Ninjago and My Little Ponie.
The moral of the story, I suppose, is that if your child is in possession of a device with a rooster alarm try to be aware of the fact. Either that or “Be sure to acquaint yourself with the timbre of the voices of any and all neighborhood roosters such that impostors will not have the chance to play you for a fool when you’d rather be sleeping.”
I think I’ll needle point that last one on a pillow.