What kind of week has it been?

What kind of week has it been? Feel free to answer if you wish, the question was initially posed by myself to myself to figure out what I was going to write about today.

I woke up this morning at some ridiculous hour for a weekend morning. This is something I do every Saturday to witness my youngest wake up and stumble out of the door to go do his paper round. This is often a painful anxiety ridden routine that is repeated just by me on a Saturday, but is played out every weekday morning with Lisa, plus or minus my insightful albeit irritating (according to my youngest and Lisa) interjections. On a Saturday however the pleasure of this delightful early morning encounter is all mine. I say all mine, I know Jack is present, but his take on the whole episode is very different from mine. To give you a better idea of my angst ridden Saturday morning I will describe it to you in some detail.

The day starts at 5am with Lisa’s alarm going off (or is it 5:30, not sure but it is bloody early). This is to alert her that it is time for Ben (our eldest) to get up to go to work at the Newsagent. This is essentially a redundant exercise as Ben is always up (he is like his Dad, he has no problem getting up and getting ready). I then go back off to sleep. 10 minutes later Lisa’s alarm goes off again! This I assume (I know I shouldn’t assume, but it is ten past effing five in the effing morning) is to remind her that Ben is getting up, for the life of me I don’t know why she needs reminding, at this point he is either eating breakfast downstairs or brushing his teeth. Now I am awake feeling a little stressed and guilty. I am feeling guilty that I am feeling bad thoughts towards my family and how much nicer it was when I could just lay in bed until say 8 O’clock (as I write this it is approx. 8:20am, and Lisa is still in bed!).

By about 6am I start to drift off to sleep again, only to be startled by to wakefulness by my own alarm at 6:30am. Time to remind Jack of his contractual obligation with the local newsagent. Jack does have an alarm on his phone, but we have discouraged him from using it, as for some anatomical anomaly he is incapable of hearing it, and yet the rest of the effing house can hear LOUD AND CLEAR! I find normally that if you repeat his name 4 times starting with a normal tone raising to a near shout is effective in the short-term.

It is now 6:40am, now my understanding is that he is due to be at newsagent at 7am, however Jack assures me most Saturdays that he needs to be there after 7:15am due to the apparent tardiness of the weekend newspaper delivery driver, and the owner cannot face having spending more than necessary amount of time in the company several adolescents that early in the morning and in such a confined space. As I explained Jack gives me these assurances on a regular basis, I am sure he is telling the truth, however every week, I manage to ignore this and start to get anxious, about him being late and getting in to trouble or even sacked. In the cold light of day, for the life of me I cannot understand why that would be a bad thing,  but then that is just me being a grumpy old bastard. So at 6:43 after I have visualised him being summarily dismissed from his position as newspaper delivery boy, I venture out into the freezing cold garden in my pyjamas to prepare his bike, safety equipment (hi-vis and helmet) and paper boys bag.

6:45am I am back in the house shivering, there is no sign of any movement from Jack’s bedroom. I shout up the stairs.

“Jack are you awake?”

“What?”

“Are you awake!?”

No response

“Jack!!!!”

“What!?”

“Are you awa…… doesn’t matter.”

I then hear the door shut. I feel better, he is up, I can relax.

7:08am I have not heard any movement since the door shut.

“You do know it is ten past seven?” I shout upstairs.

“I’m getting ready!!!!” Is he incredulous reply.

7:10 he is down stairs putting his trainers on staring into space, something comes on the TV that grabs his attention. It is as if someone has pressed his pause button.

“Jack! You are going to be late!”

“Calm down Dad, I tell you every week we don’t need to be the until after 7:15.

He gets up and leaves, shouting see ya as he walks out the door.

I do need to take a leaf out of his book, and just chill. He still gets there when he needs to. I just cannot be like that, I need to be somewhere early just so I know I am not late.

So that was my Saturday morning and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

I started with the question, what kind of week has it been?

Well it has been a great week. I may tell you about it tomorrow.