Day 2 of H-cation: Early Morning Riser

What I won't miss during the current H-cation...

Day 2 of H-cation:

2. The Early Morning Riser

Don't confuse this with the Pure Prairie League song, Early Morning Riser. I love that song. Even though the lyrics are a bit creepy, what with the lovin' like a sister, lovin' like a brother thing going on.

No, I'm talking about Farmer H on the weekends, when he decides he's going to rise before the seven roosters start crowing. It's kind of like the if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy scenario. If Farmer H is up, everybody's up. That's a fact, Jack. Farmer H employs two main methods of waking me. With the boys, he's not so subtle. He stomps into their rooms, pounds on the wall, and demands that they get up.

The first rude awakening is the Bed Bounce. Farmer H dresses himself funny, then sits on the edge of the bed to put on his work boots. Never mind that there are perfectly good chairs and couches in the next room that could support his rump during this task. He jounces and bounces the mattress, supposedly while he's yanking the laces of the shoes. I don't know why else I would be flung into the air like a rail-thin camper by an obese counselor dropping from an eagle-aerie height onto a rainbow-striped inflatable air pillow tied to the dock at a mountain lake. Or like a toddler launched by tweens in a school carnival moonwalk jump gone bad.

If I play good possum, and bite my tongue to hold back the bitter bile which might spew forth in a predawn tongue-lashing, Farmer H has a backup tactic. He tromps onto the back porch, fills a measuring 2-cup plastic container with dry dog food, and flings it into two separate flat metal dog dishes, with the force a teenage boy would fling those tissue balls of gunpowder sold on the 4th of July as Snap 'n' Pops onto concrete or pavement.

Yes. I will be busy not-missing the Early Morning Riser wake-up calls this week.