"Wake Up, Brother!"

“You hoo! You hoo! Come on, get up already. It’s already late!” I yelled in a loud voice. My brother continued to sleep. He must have gotten to bed really late the night before. There was no other way he could still be sleeping after the loud noise I had just made. Yet, sleep he did.

“Hellooooo!” I tried again in a louder voice. Perhaps now he would get the message. We had planned this day for a while; we were both going to go on a big long bike ride. “Wake UuuP.” No answer.

Finally I had had enough. I went to the kitchen and got a glass of water. “Sam, If you’re not up in 5 seconds you are getting this cup of water all over your head and pillow,” I said in a loud voice.

“What do you want?” my sleepy brother Sam asked in a very drowsy voice. With every syllable I knew he wanted me to leave him alone and let him sleep for another 24 hours. But that was not in the cards today.

“Sam, don’t you remember? We’re going on a long bike ride today. Don’t tell me you didn’t get any sleep!” With the last word ‘sleep’ Sam jumps from the bed and hits his head against the cup of water I was holding above his head.

“WTF, WTF, WTF. I was getting up, Damn it!” He yelled in a still sleepy voice. “Why do you have to always be like that? It’s not like it’s the end of the world. So… We leave an hour later. What’s the big deal?”

I gave him the stone cold killer look, as if to say, you have got to be kidding me. Here I was trying to do him a favor and all he can do is throw it back in my face. Fine let him be like that. “So go back to sleep if you don’t want to wake up. I just thought you would like the reminder, seeing as we planned this trip for the past 3 weeks,” I said in a defensive tone.

“W/E, Billy. Be that way. Just get out so I can get out of these wet cloths and into my biking gear.” Sam began getting out of bed, talking as he did so in a now much calmer voice. It looked like we were back on track after all. A day of biking awaited us.

“Ok, ok, but every hour counts so make it snappy,” I said back to him. I couldn’t stand to let him have the last word, especially when he was still so sleepy and not fully alert. “We don’t have all day, you know.”

I left the room to give him a chance to get dressed in privacy. Even if I was in the biggest rush I don’t think he would want me standing there as he got into his cloths. All niceness aside, I knew something was wrong when 5 minutes later I still did not see him getting out of the room fully dressed.

“When I come in there you had better be fully dressed, Sam,” I yelled through the door. Sam was a big kid and I knew I would have to give him a few extra minutes to get ready, but enough was enough already. I was going back in.

“Saaaaammm!” He had gone back to sleep and pulled the covers back over his head, poured water on them and all. This was intolerable. We had planned this bike trip for a while and if he was not up for it that was just fine. I would go on my own, Billy and the wind in his hair with no fat brother keeping him behind.

“Fine, if you’re not ready I’m going to go by myself. Your loss,” I said to the sleeping form. “Good Bye.”

I left the room got on my bike and just as I was prepared to leave the house, “Sam! Wait!” a loud voice screamed out.

This isn’t right, I said to myself. I was leaving without him. I began slowly riding down the street to warm up for the long trip.

“Life is just too short to wait for inconsiderate oversleeping brothers”, I thought to myself.