Attention, satire!

My morning time slot

(Bild: Gernot Kurz)

I am a highly disciplined morning person. I don't indulge in the cliché of the writer who has worked at night - ideally under the influence of alcohol - and gets up in the afternoon. As tempting as that would be. But thanks to a morning schedule that lasts exactly 15 minutes, I'm sitting at my desk at 7 o'clock sharp, ready to go. Theoretically, that is, if physics doesn't get in the way.

After the alarm rings at 6.45 a.m., I jump out of bed without hesitation - with a croaky "and action" on my lips, as I once learned in a mental training course. Then I make my bed, because the mental coach said that the first positive task influences the rest of the day. Then I take a dynamic shower, followed by even more dynamic push-ups on the gym mat. Then I make myself a glass of warm water with apple cider vinegar, because that's supposed to get everything else going. This mental coach really has a problem.

And then I sit in front of my laptop - a well-oiled machine - exactly 15 minutes after getting up at 07:00 sharp. And what does it do? It shows 7:15. Every time! What happens there? In which time slot do the 15 minutes disappear every morning? How did I manage to create the physical phenomenon of the relationship between space and time in my own home? If light spreads through space at different speeds, a short gap in time can occur, I have now learned. According to science, it's normally around 40 trillionths of a second; I manage 15 minutes.

The missing 15 minutes
My beloved partner gives the whole thing an even bigger dimension. She gets up an hour and a half earlier than she has to, but ends up missing the same 15 minutes. Instead of leaving relaxed at 7.30 a.m., she rushes off at 7.45 a.m. and arrives at work 15 minutes late. But that's no longer her fault, it's the fault of the drivers who think they have to drive at the same time as her and are pointlessly clogging up the road.

I don't have a solution for her. I see two options for myself: I drink at night and get up in the afternoon or I set my alarm for 6.30 a.m. Then I'm ready at 7 a.m. after the exact 15-minute morning ritual. That would be cheating, of course, but I won't tell anyone.