What Do Owls Eat?

5:00am

BA! BAN-A! BA! BA! BA!

My alarm clock. It plays a little song.

I slide out of the soft sheets. In the bathroom, I wash my face, put in contacts, brush my teeth.

By 5:15am I’m out the door.

The freeway is packed. Starbucks is buzzing. The path along the Potomac is full of runners, jogging in the dark and the pouring rain.

What species are you people and what planet do you come from?

I know – you are my husband. And my mom and dad. You are my writing friend, my book club friend, and my law school friend. Actually, come to think of it, most people I know are morning people.

Not me.

But this week is different. I pledged to be an early bird for five days. Anyone can do anything for five days, right? I saw a woman sculling along the Potomac a few weeks ago and thought: “Wow, she looks so peaceful. So graceful. So pretty and relaxed. I want to be her!”

To learn to scull, I was told I had to be at the boathouse before sun-up. So here I am. I stand, shivering, dripping, and yawning. I feel grimy and cranky and the water smells like rotten fish. I think: “There is nothing pretty about this picture.”

The instructor puts us in simulators on the land. Tomorrow will be our BIG day: permission to take gigantic yellow boats with big yellow oars in the water – boats that scream BEGINNER!

Tomorrow? Four more days of this?

BA! BAN-A! B—

I hit the off button and roll over, burying myself deep within the warm, soft sheets. No worm for me. My days – er, I mean my day – of being a morning person? Over!