“He will sleep ’til noon but before it’s dark, he’ll have every picnic basket that’s in Jellystone Park”… the Yogi Bear theme. One of the problems of working in the media is that you have access to all manner of daily horror stories about the human body. The latest malady to strike America is something called: Deteriorated Sleep Quality. Basically, BSQ means that the average person, once they turn 30, their quality sleep patterns take a nose dive.

Konk, snore, hee-bee-bee-bee. Night-night. Rack time. One With The Hammock. All bye-bye.

This sucks.

Julie Carrier from the University of Pittsburgh conducted a study among 100 people ages 20 to 59. They kept diaries on their sleep patterns, which I can’t remotely understand how you’d even begin to conduct a self-awareness exercise of such magnitude. 

Dear Diary:

“I’m awake. I’m awake. I’m awake. I’m still awake. Awake. Awake. Awake. La-la-la-la-la. Awake. Puddle of spittle in my lap so apparently, I must have not been awake, or these sleep doctors are like, messing with my mind. But, I’m awake again. I’m still awake … ” 

Dr. Carrier’s study came up with the conclusion that people in middle age, as opposed to The Middle Ages when Charlemagne terrorized France, tend to hit the hay earlier, wake more often, rise earlier and feel more spunky when they wake than people in their 20s.

Which begs the question.

Can one be both in one’s 20s, and, in one’s pants at the same time? Can one be in one’s 20s, in one’s pants — and — in line at World o’ Doughnuts sighing and thinking to themselves: “Will that lead singer to the Stone Temple Pilots and that nice Charlie Sheen boy EVER get their lives together?”

It’s one of those parallel universe dilemmas.

0002000003D1000006E83CB,The frightening conclusion of these studies seem to indicate that as we get older, we sleep less. Less, damn their science man’s eyes. Worse, instead of maintaining our status as Disco-Crazy Teen Night Owls, which likewise shouldn’t be wished on anyone, the older we get, the more we morph into A Dreaded Morning Person.

I despise Morning People.

They’re all dressed, showered and shaved, sitting patiently next to their briefcases with hands folded neatly on laps, picking nonexistent cat lint off their nicely-pressed suits, humming efficiently while waiting for the sun to rise. As the first blinding, flesh-melting rays of dawn scream over a distant condo, they dash outside, climb in their car (hands always at 10 and 2) and say, in Pee-Wee Hermann fashion, “Good morning, Mr. 405! How are WE this morning!! Memo to myself: Get up an hour earlier tomorrow, mow the lawn, change the oil in the minivan and drive over to the Orphan’s Hospital to read them Scripture!”

Me. I’m not a Morning Person. If the phone rings before 2 p.m., I greet the day with a pained and hairy “Ahhhhh, cripes…” followed by, “Oh please. Please God. Not again.” It takes me a full two weeks to wake up in the morning.

If I had my preference, I’d stumble out of bed around sundown, stagger down to the closest bistro that sells breakfast at 8:30 p.m., squint at the pasty guy on the stool next to me wearing a tux, pointy teeth and red eyes and say, “Just what in the hell do you think YOU’RE looking at, Casket Boy?” Then, after we had our coffee, me and the vampire would become friends and find some happy-go-lucky morning person out for his evening jog and just beat the ever-loving crap out of him with a shovel.

This report as published in The Journal of Sleep Research — which you’d think would be all black pages floating in an abyss — speculates the reason why we get less sleep in middle age might be because we fret. We fret about things like jobs, children and death.

Why?

I mean, they’re not going anywhere. Four a.m. Two p.m. You open your eyes and they’re there — Jobs, Children and Death. Three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They won’t go away. They just stand there, with big, Walter Keene eyes, imploring you to Xerox something or make them breakfast.

Me. I always say, “Resist Science.”  It’s Thursday morning. None of us have any business being out of bed yet.

John Boston is a gifted writer and humorist who has won 118 national writing awards. He is a wonderful human being and it is a privilege to call him a friend. John will continue to live in the Santa Clarita Valley and write; there are an awful lot of folks that will be glad to hear that! His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.