I thought this posted Saturday morning. It didn’t, so I’m posting now. Still makes me laugh when I remember it!

7:21am Saturday morning and my alarm is going off. As I hit snooze and think to myself….do I really want to go to water fitness? I do, but I’m tired and I am just not ready to get up yet. Maybe in 9 minutes my thoughts will be different. The snooze button, a wonderful and horrible invention.

7:30am, alarm goes off again and as I hit snooze, I rationalize. Yes, I need to lose weight. Yes, I want to sleep. Oh wait, I have to cut the grass! I’ll sleep another 30 minutes or so and then get up and do that. That will be the workout for the day.

Content with my decision, I start to drift off for another blissful 8 1/2 minutes because I still haven’t shut off my the alarm. I never do. I have hit snooze for over an hour. As I slowly start to drift, I change positions of my leg. I accidentally bump Zipper, my Jack Russell Terrier, and he growls and leaps off the bed to curl up in his dog bed.

Zipper, aka “Mr. Grumpy” does not like to be touched when he is sleeping. He doesn’t bite, he just growls loud and takes off like you beat him. He has a way of doing it with such a flair that he can make you feel guilty! It wouldn’t be so bad except that he is also a leg seeker in bed. He insists on touching your leg somewhere. Crazy isn’t it? You can’t accidentally bump him but he insists on touching you. If I move my leg slightly away from him, he will scoot over so he is touching me again. I don’t mind. He’s so cute that it’s difficult to stay mad at him for very long.

Now that he is pouting in his dog bed, I look at my iPhone. A little over 2 minutes left before the alarm is going off. Maybe I should go to water fitness class. Oh yeah, the grass! I’m good. I start to drift again.

7:39am. Stupid alarm. I should just shut it off, or at least change the time. Habit wins, I hit snooze even as I think about it. Start to drift off and I hear crunch crunch crunch. Now, when you have two VERY different dogs that seem to have one thing in common; doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing, you get very in tune with the noises they make. I listen again. Bella, my Neapolitan Mastiff is chewing her toenails. Ugh! The sound. It’s so annoying. I listen again to make sure it’s her toenails and not the bedding as she often does, decide to try to ignore her and go back to sleep.

With Bella, when you interact with her in the morning, she sometimes takes that as an invitation to start playing.

Crunch, crunch….I can’t take it. Eyes still closed, not wanting to face the morning light, I reach my hand around and find her head. I put my hand under her mouth and slowly pull it away from her paw. She stops.

I’m hot. I decide to turn on my little fan next to my bed. Blasts of cold air hit my face. I forgot, the last time I had it on I was laying diagonally across my bed. It’s annoying me hitting my face. I shut it back off. I’m not THAT hot. The blast helped a little anyway.

7:48am alarm goes off and snooze is, yet again, tapped and I start to drift off back to sleep. Then I hear it. The unmistakable sound of Zipper licking his butt. It it one of the most annoying sounds in the world at ANY time but especially when you are trying to sleep. Zipper’s butt licking is an obsession of his. He licks loud. He licks for a long time. It isn’t just licking…it’s like a disgusting slurping sound. I can’t take it. I know it won’t stop. All I want to do is sleep!!! Why won’t they cooperate? I clap my hands loudly. That gets his attention. He stops. Briefly. In the 10 seconds it takes me to rejoice that he stopped without me getting up, he starts up again. AARGH!!!! Not only is he starting up again just as loud, but Bella has started her toenail crunching again as well. I’m guessing my hand clap woke her. I clap my hand again in a last-ditch effort before I have to get up and go over to stop him. They both stop! What???? Blissful sleep for a few more minutes? Yes!!!

I sink deeper into my pillow, getting ready to enjoy the last few minutes of sleep before the snooze alarm disturbs me. Of course, my brain is starting to wonder into thought. I should get up and write this. No! Sleep first, write later. I won’t remember all the small details. Yes you will, go back to sleep. This war of thoughts in my head entertain me and scare me at the same time. Sleep wins….well….the under a minute sleep before the snooze.

7:57am alarm goes off. Snooze tapped automatically. Desire to sleep still winning. Zipper jumps back on the bed and curls up at my calf. It’s ok. I can still sleep. Bella stands up, oh no, what is she doing….she flops back down in a different position. Phew! Sleep crisis diverted. All is perfect. Sleep comes to me.

I know I fell back to sleep. Then it happens. Bella must have stretched her leg a little and tapped Zipper. Zipper growled and jumped up. (That’s what woke me back up). Bella reacted to the growl with a pounce like jump. For such a big dog, she acts like a 20lb dog sometimes. It’s GAME ON! Play time commence. 8:03am. I’ve lost. I pick up my iPhone to write. Not my favorite tool but I still don’t feel like getting up to go downstairs and get my tablet or laptop.

8:06am alarm goes off as I’m writing. I shut it off. I should have just gone to water fitness!

The story should end there, but it doesn’t. In the time it took me to write this, play time stopped and started again. Both times very short-lived. I had a mastiff paw digging into my back. I had Zipper get mad at me again because he tried to lay too close to my arm and it was moving too much for him. I had to stop Bella from licking her butt. Luckily she is not obsessed like Zipper so it’s easy to stop her. Now, as I’m about to conclude this story, I look over. They are both sound asleep, blissfully unaware, dreaming their doggie dreams, while I am wide awake! 8:55am. Water fitness would be just ending. I laugh at the irony. Time to get up.