I go to bed at the same time as most third graders, this is not so much an active choice as it is a response to my body shutting down. Prior to the magical hour of nine pm I am a normal, (relatively) functioning adult; I do chores, have conversations with Roscoe about things which need to be done around the house and what not. However after nine pm all bets are off and I am transformed by exhaustion. I decided to record what happens on a typical evening.

8:58 PM

Roscoe and I are in the office. Roscoe is doing work. I am reviewing my day with him.

The Great Unwashed – “So the mechanics have an opening at 9 AM Saturday which would work around the family function at one and leave me enough time to cook dinner for our friends at five.”

Roscoe – “That sounds good, you look tired. Why don’t you go to bed?”

The Great Unwashed exits the room to go sit on the sofa.

The Great Unwashed – “I’m not tired.”

9:00 PM

It’s at this point when the magical hour begins and I transform from a perfectly functional adult into a nonsense spewing, sloth.

9:01 PM

The Great Unwashed calls to Roscoe in the next room.

The Great Unwashed – “Why don’t we own a llama?”

9:03 PM

The Great Unwashed – “We should eat more capers.”

9:04 PM

The Great Unwashed – “I want to learn skeleton.”

9:05 PM

The Great Unwashed – “Wait is skeleton the one where you’re face down or is that luge?”

Roscoe sensing that there is a question that actually requires an answer pipes up “Skeleton is facedown”

The Great Unwashed – “Oh. Then I want to learn to luge.”

It’s around this point generally that Roscoe hauls himself out of the pilot chair in the office and comes to tell me to go to bed.

9:06 PM

Roscoe “Go to bed”

The Great Unwashed sprawled across the couch lacking any sort of muscle tone, squints and says defiantly -“No”

Weary but not beaten Roscoe returns to the office.

9:11 PM

The sound of the Great Unwashed voice is tinged with exhaustion now.

The Great Unwashed – “Where’s your lumbago?”

Roscoe is now approaching fed up and once again leaves the office to face The Great Unwashed who actually appears to be liquefying before his eyes from lack of muscle tone.

Roscoe – “Go. To. Bed.”

The Great Unwashed – “No, I’m not tired and I don’t want to have to brush my teeth.”

9:12 PM

The Great Unwashed – “Would you still go out in public with me if I wore stick on mutton chops?”

9:13 PM

The Great Unwashed – “The bathroom is too far away. Carry me!”

Roscoe will be unmoved by this plea. Mostly because previously when he has acquiesced to my demands to be carried I have gone limp and turned into what he calls “a 300 lb blob”. This of course causes me to take offense that he thinks I’m 300 lbs and annoys Roscoe because I’m still no closer to brushing my teeth.

9:15 PM

It’s at this point generally that I start to sing fragments of songs over and over. I may have migrated to the floor in a half hearted attempt to go to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

9:17 PM

Roscoe once more extracts himself from the pilot chair and stalks to the living room to face me.

Roscoe – “GO TO BED”

The Great Unwashed in a thoroughly defeated and utterly exhausted tone “No.”

Roscoe stomps back to the office.

9:23 PM

The disembodied and miserable voice of the Great Unwashed floats into the office.

The Great Unwashed – “I’m so tired I don’t want to exist!”

And with that I promptly brush my teeth and go to bed. And then I wake up at five am, perky and raring to go in a way that would cause people around me to become homicidal, luckily most of the world isn’t up at that time. Thus far no bodily harm has come to me for awaking at this early hour.