Edit: I wrote this a long time ago (like three or four-ish years ago) when I was still in college, but I just found it and started cracking up, so I’m sharing it with you. I remember this day clearly because Mary sang that song about being a burrito all day, and when we got burritos for supper that night, we had a long discussion about whether or not we were cannibals. (We decided we were.)
I am not a morning person.
I don’t speak in the morning until I’ve had at least one cup of coffee. Even with that, my brain doesn’t actually turn on until 8 or 9. I’m grumpy, mean, and vaguely homicidal every morning. My family avoids me and warns everyone to never talk to me. It’s bad.
Usually, when I sleep, I find a comfortable position and lay there like a dead person all night. When I was young, Lady Lifegiver would come in to check on me, and she always had to feel to see if I was still breathing because I was so motionless.
Now (when I’m home), if she feels the need to check on me, she pops her head in my room, sees me in bed, and leaves. She told me once that she figures, if I’m dead, she’ll smell me in the morning and everything will be just peachy.
Strangely enough, I also have a problem with falling out of bed. Like, a very serious, I-can’t-sleep-on-the-top-bunk, I-can’t-have-tables-with-sharp-corners-by-my-bed, it’s-normal-to-wake-up-in-the-floor problem.
I have no clue how both of those things go together. I guess, when I do move, I do it violently.
All of this has a point. You need to understand this about me to know why some of the events of this particular morning didn’t surprise me at all and some did.
Ahem. Story.
I woke up feeling the terror of a new day and a gross morning. I kept my eyes closed, basked in the glory of my warm cocoon of blankets and made a decision. I had read somewhere that, if you leap out of bed and make some sort of happy noise and manufacture a happy face, somehow, it will improve your day.
I had tried this before last semester, and it failed horribly. I had been studying the night before and left my book beside my bed. When I leaped out of bed, my foot caught on the book, and I plowed into the floor.
A bruised face does not make for a good day.
But!
It was a new, disgusting morning, I hadn’t been studying in bed the night before, and I decided to try again. So, I gathered myself, tried to force a smile, and leaped out of bed.
Except I didn’t make it very far.
I couldn’t move.
I opened my eyes to find myself in my floor, next to my bed, completely wrapped up in all of my blankets, all of my pillows, and both my top and bottom sheet.
Apparently, I had a rough night.
“Wrapped” was also probably the wrong word to put there. It doesn’t adequately describe the knots I had somehow made in my sheets and the way my fitted sheet had wrapped its way around my head like a giant turban and the tight hold my blankets had on my legs, rendering them immovable.
It was bad.
So, I did the only thing I knew to do – I tried to get out.
I was flopping wildly on the floor, grumbling to myself, and trying to get at a knot behind my left shoulder blade that seemed to be holding it all together, when I heard the tale-tell thud of Twin getting out of bed.
“Great,” I grumbled again. “Now I’ve even awakened The Kraken, and she doesn’t have to get up for another hour or so.”
Bracing myself for her terrible visage and suddenly glad I had all the padding my blankets afforded, I watched Twin climb the stairs to my room.
When she saw me she stared, rubbed her eyes with her fists, stared some more, and finally asked, “What are you doing? Why are you a burrito?”
Realizing she was too sleepy to be mean, I decided to make the most of her presence. “There’s a knot under my left shoulder. Help me get it.”
She stared at me for a second more, said, “Okay,” then turned around and walked back downstairs.
“No, Mary,” I called. “I need you! Come help me!”
She didn’t reply.
But, a few minutes later, I heard her coming back up the stairs, humming to herself (which, if you know her, you know is a bad thing).
Finally. Help. I would be able to get a shower before class.
She stood at the top of the steps until I looked at her. Strangely enough, I noticed she had her blanket.
I could only stare as she looked me square in the face and said, “If you’re a burrito, I’m a burrito.”
Then she laid down beside me and wrapped herself up.
“No! Help me with this knot! I need to get it untied so I can get out. I need a shower, and I can’t be late for class!”
She calmly flipped over in her burrito, looked me in the eyes and said, “Mary’s not here right now. I’m a burrito, and burritos don’t have hands.” Then she flipped back over and refused to speak to me.
Finally, I got the knot out on my own, got my shower, and made it to class on time.
When I left, Mary was still in my floor. I think I also heard her singing something about being a burrito and that being okay as I shut the door behind me.
Life Where He Leads 