On the Day I was Going to be Late for Work and My Furniture Helped Me

It has happened to all of us. The alarm goes off, you look at the clock, you see the time and somewhere in your semi-conscious state of half waking you make the decision to simply ignore it, roll over and drift back to sleep. You finally jerk yourself out of your slumber at that irritating point in which you are juuust too late to ever make it on time despite your best efforts, but you try anyway. In an unpleasant blur of tooth brushing and pulling on pants in the dark, you manage to scramble out of your apartment and onto the streets where a walk to the bus provides that final seam which will surely seal your lateness.

Allow me to take a moment and tell you a tale about when I was going to be late for work and my furniture helped me. Not only did I end up not being late, but I also looked extra spiffy and put together.

I normally wake up for work at 7 in the morning. If I wake up at 7 in the morning, I have 45 minutes to get ready, and maybe even enjoy the newspaper over a cup of coffee (though more than likely it will be a cartoon over a bowl of Froot Loops).

Oftentimes I see that ‘7:00’ glowing bright red on my nightstand and refuse to believe that the time has truly come for me to leave my warm cocoon of blankets and sheets and face the cold bathroom floor and the harsh buzz of my electric toothbrush. I see that bright ‘7:00’ flashing in my face and, instead of rising, I simply turn off the alarm and fall back asleep. Generally half an hour to 45 minutes later, I wrench the blankets off of my body and tear through the house like a madwoman trying to compress my 45 minute morning into five.

However, there was something different about this day; something unusual about my morning routine. You see, I had recently fully furnished my apartment with purchases from the reasonably priced and wonderfully easy to navigate online furniture retailer Cymax. I woke up late, like any other day when I wake up late; however this time, squishing my routine into five minutes was much easier than before. Instead of being sprawled on the counter or in some random location, my keys were in the top drawer of my brand new accent table which I had placed conveniently next to my front door. In addition to this, I bought a brand new kitchen cart which not only provided me with a handy place to store my Froot Loops but also a way to wheel around my bowl of cereal so that I could sneak bites while I was rushing to the bathroom from the bedroom to the kitchen and back. Finally, my coat, instead of being thrown haphazardly over a chair, was perched nicely atop a lovely mahogany coat rack, right at the door, ready for me to wear.

I couldn’t believe it, but what with all of my new purchases, my 45 minutes morning routine was easily condensed into five fast minutes! I was shocked and amazed! Especially when my brand new armoire helped me pull my pants up, or when my spanking new night table gently combed my hair while I put my contacts in.

…is that normal?