Being Mr. Kenny

So this morning I rock up to work for 7.45, as I do most days, only to discover that I didn’t have to be in til 9. No-one else from the office is in yet, so I’m taking this opportunity to tell you about a game I have been playing. Possibly ever since I was born, but maybe even earlier than that. I call it, “How low can you go?” and the main object is doing anything and everything to stay in bed for as long as possible.

It’s called “How low can you go?” because squeezing those extra minutes out of your lie-in can be achieved by omitting parts of your morning routine. Things like showering, eating breakfast, that kind of thing. The sad part of this game is that there is no way to win. Unless you wish to lose your job, you really do have to get up eventually.

But then the great part is that once you are up, it’s actually not that bad! This is the amazing part of each and every morning. You (and by “you”, I mean “I”) look upon getting out of bed as the most terrible mission, to be faced with bravery and gritted teeth. Removing yourself from the warm confines of the duvet, that most motherly of all household objects, appears to be the same thing as removing yourself from all that is good, holy and true. It seems like throwing yourself into the very pit of hell itself. Dante’s hell, I mean, which at its heart was not hot and fiery, but cold and frozen.

On that note, why is it that the coldest temperatures in the Universe are found not in the Arctic, nor in the far flung corners of outer space, but precisely four inches from the inside of your bed? Science tells us that absolute zero is the coldest possible temperature, at which molecules lose all their kinetic energy and stop moving completely. I have proof otherwise. If they were to come into my room just seconds after I had woken up (and if they had survived the onslaught of language so foul it solidifies in mid air, like shards of bitter, bitter ice*) they would find that the air defied physics and remained gaseous even though it was cold enough to form black holes.

The most amazing thing about “How low can you go?” is that you get to be a champion every morning. Every day, for the whole of my life, I have eventually gotten out of bed. (That qualifier, ‘eventually’, is there to cover my student years. And most weekends. And most holidays.) This very morning, I had the victory over despair and despondency, over laziness and lethargy, over fear and fright.

So there’s something for you to do in the mornings. Let me know how you get on.

* This is dramatic license, I’m not that bad, actually.