How to Read a Clock

At about 5:15 this morning – Wifey stirred a little bit, and it woke me up. No big deal, since I was planning on waking up anyway in a few minutes. I quietly got out of bed, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and donned my gym clothes, and I was out the door right on time, intent on heading to a local park to do a pre-work workout with a few of my friends at 6AM.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I got to the park that I happened to look at the clock in my car and noticed that it read 4:00 in the morning!!!!

Somehow, and I’m still baffled by this – I woke up at 3:15, looked at my clock and convinced myself that it said 5:15. If that’s not enough, I also turned off my alarm clock on my phone – which must have also read 3:15. Oh, and then there was the clock in my car that I didn’t bother to look at. Pretty much – I dismissed every sign available, and made myself believe that it was time to go work out.

Now, mistakes happen when you’re tired. I realize this. I’m sure I’m not the only jack-ass that has woken up too early and thought it was time to get moving. But then again – the clocks weren’t the only thing that could have tipped me off:

1. At 5:30AM, it’s usually not pitch black outside. I know I was tired – but honestly – how did I miss this?

2. The route that I take to the park is a pain in the ass to drive on any day. Yet this morning, it was completely dead. I just assumed that it was my lucky day, I guess.

3. The Dunkin Donuts on my route were closed. Now, any good northeasterner knows that DD is a beacon of all that is right in this world. If there’s not a single Dunkin open within a five mile radius, there must be something awry, or it must be 3:30 in the AM.

You would think that with all of these things put together, I would have figured out pretty quickly that something was off. But nope. Not a clue. There’s only two possible explanations for this: 1. I’m an idiot, or 2. that the universe is giving me the middle finger.
I can’t in good consciousness blame this on myself – after all, I rarely make mistakes of any kind, so I’m inclined to go with the latter.



So, at this point of the story, I’m parked about a block away from the park – completely dumbfounded that it’s actually 4:00AM. I decided that I wasn't going back home. I only had two hours to wait for everyone else to show up, and by the time I drove back home – I’d only get about 45 minutes of sleep anyway. Instead, I think I’m just going to stay in the car, and try to sleep a while. Come to think of – I’m shocked that I wasn’t awakened by a cop rapping on my car window (which has happened before – but that’s a story for another time).

All in all, I got about 20 minutes of sleep, on and off. I got in a decent workout, and am now at work – where I’m still in and out of sleep. Today sucks. I hate the world. And I want my bed to be here, right now.

I realize that I have rambled on quite a bit in this blog. I consider it a feat in and of itself that I was able to form letters into words, and post them – given my current state of being.


- Jack Asher