It was a scheme only a college student could concoct.
Well, one only a college student could concoct and then seriously contemplate following through on.
And, oy, dude, did our latest college student give it a try.
Zippy the College Boy has been home from school for the summer. When he first came home, his mom and I made clear that he was to either get a job or start volunteering at some worthy charity. Which gave him some weeks while he “searched” for a job and tried to “find” a place to volunteer.
Eventually, we grew disgusted enough that we simply went ahead and signed him up to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, and it wasn’t even in the construction field. All he had to do was hang out in the ReStore, which is like a Goodwill thrift store, in that it sells donated goods for very low prices.
Not a difficult gig, to be sure.
Which meant that Zippy the College Boy spent most of his time like most college students on vacation do. In other words, he stayed up all night and then slept all day. Seriously.
The young dude would wake up around 4 pm (this is, of course, provided I didn’t grow disgusted with his behavior and “accidentally” wake him up), shuffle into the kitchen, grab something to eat for breakfast, then get his head together, then start trying to get some things done. And he’d complain because there was never anyone in the offices when he called.
It was difficult for him to get through his head that not everyone woke up as the sun went down and then stayed awake until the sun rose once again.
Still, it worked — mostly — for Zippy the College Boy.
Right up until a couple of days ago.
Zippy the College Boy realized that he’d be headed back to University of North Carolina Wilmington in a week or so and he’d have to rearrange his whole sleep-wake cycle to more closely accommodate the vast majority of humans steaming around under the relentless rays of the sun.
So, what did he do? Did he begin going to bed earlier? Begin waking up earlier? In an effort to slowly realign his circadian rhythms to the standard diurnal mode?
Of course not. Don’t be silly.
What he decided to do was to simply stay up all night, like normal, and then continue staying up all day so that when night arrived he’d be ready for bed and back on track.
The first I knew about it was when I got up at 8:30 am to walk Buzz, the garbage disposal that walks like a dog, and found Zippy the College Boy already up and moving about. After I got over my shock, I simply took him on face value. Maybe he really did get up early.
During the day, though, he started drooping and I twigged to what was going on. When I confronted him about it, Zippy the College Boy woke right up and started proudly detailing his scheme. I’m pretty sure he thought he was the first person to ever consider this particular pathway.
By around dinner time, though, all his pep done popped. He was pooped out and seemed glued to the couch, with a blanket over his shoulders and his eyes steadily moving into darkness.
He was out. And when I tried to go to bed around midnight, he woke up and smiled brightly at me, thinking it was morning and it had worked.
Not so much.
I was tired, though, so I went to bed. Him? If you believe him, he went to bed, listened to music for an hour or so, and then went to sleep, only to wake early the next morning.
If you believe him.
I’m not so certain. I thought I spotted a certain maniacal gleam in his eyes that was there the first morning he’d stayed up all night. Still, he did manage to stay awake that day and went to bed at a relatively normal hour.
So I guess maybe it worked, but not quite like he planned. It’s one of those things that needs to blind faith in one’s own abilities and a complete ignorance of physical laws to pull off.
In other words, something only a college student could do.
