by J. R. Practix

Abed:  adv. in bed

Every once in a while I give it the good ole’ college try. Usually it happens when I’ve had a particularly busy day. I ease myself under the covers, making a promise to the surrounding furniture in the room that I have no intention of emerging from this sleep chamber for several days, if not weeks.

It doesn’t make any difference. I always wake up the next morning around six o’clock and have a growing sense of worthlessness from hugging my pillow instead of pursuing the day. It’s not that I am especially energetic or have a massive work ethic. It’s just that I’ve never been an excellent “lie-abed.”

Candidly, it was possibly one of my greatest difficulties in being a parent to adolescents. It was always beyond my comprehension how folks in their teens, who possessed such immense nervous energy just hours before, twitching, leaping about or shaking their leg like a flea-ridden dog as they watched television, could become comatose and unable revive the next morning– passing over the glory of breakfast and early morning television, not to mention the rising of the sun, to finally trip down the stairs at the noon hour, barely able to audibly inquire what might be available to eat.

I don’t often share this with people because there’s a certain self-righteousness about getting up early in the morning that I find distasteful. I don’t do it because I want to go out and talk with the birds like St. Francis of Assisi. Nor is there seed to plant in the back forty with my Amish brothers and sisters.

It’s just me.

There are only two things to do in bed, and once you complete one and the other’s not available, well … it makes me fidgety.

So, to all people who ARE lie-abeds, I tell you that I am not judgmental whatsoever. Actually, I come just short of admiration for your ability to doze back off instead of staring at the ceiling, wondering about the asbestos content in the tiles.

No, you will not often find me abed. But you’ll probably outlive me, too.

Isn’t it funny that we humans are so intent on getting our sack time that we refer to death as “the eternal sleep?”