Rush, Rush, Hurry, Hurry Love

When J-Fed lived in Basketcaseville, he had to be out the door by 7 am. Every day. There wasn’t time to feed the dogs, burp the baby, drive daughter to school or partake in any other a.m. rituals. No, it was 7 a.m. sharp. No sooner, no later. He couldn’t afford to be tardy. After all, he was his own boss and he didn’t want to get in trouble… with himself.

That’s right. J-Fed always seemed to be in a hurry to go nowhere to do nothing.

However, since his relocation, J-Fed’s work schedule had conveniently changed. Gone were the days of being an early worm, and I stress worm. J-Fed usually strolled in to Basketcaseville about 9:30 a.m. to pick up his work truck, which I’d been nice enough to let him park at the house without a fee. While I was doing him a favor, I most certainly was not doing myself any favors.

You see, I had a daily reminder of what J-Fed did and didn’t do while he lived here. He did shirk his responsibilities, and he most certainly didn’t stick around to help out. Suddenly, J-Fed had the luxury of sleeping in during the week while I was stuck like Chuck rising at the crack of dawn to care for the kiddies.

There was nothing more stomach-churning than knowing that the Fedster could hit the snooze button repeatedly for as long as he liked. Unfortunately, there was no snooze button on our five-month-old daughter. Once her alarm sounded, my eyes became as wide as saucers. There was no rest for the weary. It wasn’t a moment after I was done feeding her that I was bombarded by our 5-year-old obsessing over what she was going to wear to school while pleading for an M&M ice cream sandwich for breakfast.

As I went through these daily passages praying for Calgon -- or some sort of mild sedative to take me away – I didn’t take much comfort in knowing that J-Fed was sleeping like a baby right up the road. I couldn’t imagine a day without rising and shining to the clamoring of two kids. Not that I would have traded places with the little putz, but sleep deprivation could push you to the brink of insanity. And the thought of J-Fed’s peaceful slumber drove me absolutely bonkers.

As well rested as he might have been, I just couldn’t understand why J-Fed looked so damn tired when he arrived in the mornings. I mean, it wasn’t like he didn’t have the opportunity to sleep in. But then he took me someplace I didn’t want to go. He explained that he’s soooooo exhausted because he stayed up all night watching movies on all his new pay channels.

“Man, I watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith last night until 4 a.m. Boy was it cool when she threw that knife into his leg,” he giggled.

J-Fed, you have no idea just how cool I think that is. In fact, I could only wish to inflict the type of bodily harm on you that Mrs. Smith inflicted upon Mr. Smith. But what is not cool is the fact that when you lived here, you couldn’t once get up in the middle of the night to help me feed the baby. You couldn’t once open those big blue eyes before 6:30 a.m. to assist me. And when you did roll out of bed growling like a bear, you barely had one foot out of the bed before you had one foot out of the door. If only I could stick one foot up your…