Lettuce Share

As a former waitress, I’m a night person that rarely goes to bed before midnight.  Accordingly, I’m not the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed type.  I may get to work at nine but don’t really function until ten.  Still my reputation has been somewhat exaggerated over the years.  When my mother missed my call at 8:30 in the morning about six-months ago and she didn’t reach me when she tried back, that alone warranted a call to my sister to see if I was okay.  Seeing as I’m now an adult who holds a day-job, I found this a tad much.  But when I complained to my sister about our mother’s clear overreaction, all she said was, “Well, it was weird that you called so early.”  Geesh, you just can’t shake a reputation with your family, so here’s the proof that the police should not be called if I’m awake before noon.  Due to guests, stress, life, whatnot, I was asleep by 10:30 last night which had me up at 6:30 this morning.  It’s quite the mixed bag when you wake up before dawn… A wolf spider in the bathroom wasn’t exactly encouraging.  Through one squinted eye, had I not heard rumors about it from John’s sister already, I would’ve sleepily assumed this massive spider was a leftover dream fragment.  It was almost the size of my hand, had spikes and was missing a leg.  I’ve never been scared of spiders, but there was no way I was messing with this one…so it was tap, tap, tap with my finger and the sweetest little whisper, john, john... Thirty seconds and a little mumbling later, the bathroom was sans spider and it was off to the beach……much better and most definitely worth getting up in the dark for…at least every once in a while.  That early, the canopy of umbrellas and labyrinth of towels haven’t been established yet, and human foot prints haven’t obliterated the triangle trails of webbed feet in the sand.  The birds outnumber the people fifty to one…  …and it was really nice.