I wake up early, anywhere from 4 am to 6 am, almost every day.

Early means whenever the light hits my eyelid or the TV turns on and off by itself or a cat whisker finds its way up my nose. I’m a light sleeper and this usually translates into not a lot of sleep. I get up, get dressed, get a cup of coffee and am ready to take on my day. The moment my eyes open, I am ready to go. Sparky on the other hand, could sleep all day. In fact, there are days when he does just that.

It can be almost impossible to actually get his ass up. I usually get the “Just five more minutes” thing. This continues every 15 minutes until he realizes that he has to get up or my reminders get less friendly and more threatening. Unless there is a train to catch, Sparky just cannot get up in the mornings.

Until today.

There is something you should know about me. If I’m awake, I want everyone else in the house to be awake too. I don’t know why, but I do. If my loved ones don’t get up on their own in what I deem an appropriate of amount time, I help them along. I am terrifying, merciless, and cruel in my wake up methods. My early morning wake up habits give me an edge over my competition loved ones and I cannot stop myself from indulging in a little loving torture.

Some examples:

If I’m feeling nice: The stare. Get as close as possible to sleeper without actually waking them. Then stare, making small little noises until they wake up. Usually invoking the name of some god and a swear word, they wake within five minutes. Nothing like the violation of sleep vulnerability to really wake someone up.

Brother and Sister: The Wakey-Uppy Song accompanied with bed jumping: First sing the song off key and loud as you walk in the room. Wait for the head of sleeper to go under pillow. As soon as the head is covered, jump on the bed making sure to include prone form under blankets in jumping surface. Warning: be prepared to move quickly as subject can get violent. Bonus points: If subject starts swinging, jump off the bed and watch them fall sadly back on the bed knowing there will be no respite.

Sparky: Jump up and down repeatedly on his chest singing the “I Love Bukkake” song and kisses. This doesn’t always work, but if it does, he wakes up happy.

Sparky, Plan B: Open curtains letting full morning light flood the bed room, open balcony door and jump up and down singing the “Sparky Wake Up!” song.

So what is my new weapon of early morning torture?

The Roomba, Commander Ernest Evans.

For my birthday, my brother sent me a Roomba. A Roomba with a more powerful battery that required a 16 hour initial charge cycle. I got the German home base yesterday in the mail and couldn’t play with it at all yesterday and nothing drives me battier than a toy I can’t play with right away. However, this morning at 6 am, it was ready to go.

This morning, I tried to wake up Sparky nicely before his alarm went off. He responded with the five more minute thing. So I got up, made my coffee, fed the cats then spied Commander E. Evans blinking green, ready for his mission.

Into the darkened bedroom I crept. Slyly and quietly I set him down and using the remote control, Commander Evans began his first foray into cat hair heaven. Moans could be heard over the sound of the motor and lo and behold Sparky was awake.

Commander Evans is a scheduler Roomba and he has been programmed for 7 am. Every Day.

Aren’t you glad you don’t live with me?