Some folks wake up every morning, perform their hygienic routines, and go to the breakfast table or veranda bistro set to enjoy the sunrise, a cup of coffee, and a bit of breakfast. I admire those people, but I am not one of them. My parents and their parents were those people.
When I was a medical resident, I faked being one of those people. I got up early in order to show up at morning report on time. I don’t remember ever being late, but if I ever was, I have forgotten it because of the shame it would have brought on me and my progeny for seven generations. It’s like that for our servicemen and women too, I suspect. We do what is required of us because it our duty – not because it is our predilection.
No, Susan and I leave our bed only reluctantly. The day’s activities are never as kind to us as is a restful embrace in the arms of Morpheus. We need to be coaxed. We need to be cajoled into leaving our bed. I ask Susan for coffee, and she eventually stirs and slowly makes her way into the kitchen to brew a new pot or serve up the remnants of the prior day’s pot for the microwave to warm. Susan takes half & half in her coffee; I prefer mine black with just a few grains of sugar.
We sip our coffees and have a pastry or biscotti while we read emails, check our social network feeds, and review the latest stock market gyrations. We come into consciousness slowly and painfully. There is no reason to dive right in – not anymore anyway. There is no morning report to give, no clinic opening, no staff meeting to attend, or any child to deliver to school on time. Thank the ethereal gods and ephemeral taskmasters; these obligations have ended!
Yesterday, Susan arrived at our bedside, as usual, with two coffee mugs. She set one down on my bedside table, and she made the trip around our bed to set her mug on her own bedside table. I fumbled with my pill box to get the first of five pills that I swallow with a swig of coffee each morning.
Before I could reach for my mug and take that first pill, Susan asked, “Can we switch mugs? Mine doesn’t have any cream.” In fact, she had given me her mug and taken mine. Sitting up in bed, we exchanged coffee mugs – not the best idea since I was only marginally awake, and the mugs were both full and hot. We managed to exchange mugs without accident.
This morning, Susan set my coffee mug on the tile coaster that sits on my end table. I peered into the cup. “No cream in my coffee?” I asked. She smiled. “I gave you the mug with the invisible cream.”