On Saber Watch

Saber tooth tigers are extinct, but I’m pretty sure they’ve shaped my life in at least one big way. You see, you don’t know me yet, but I’ll share the fact that I’m not a morning person. I usually feel intense pain, anger, and the desire to hurt things—particularly sunlight, my alarm clock, and occasionally my wonderful grandmother who is giving me a wakeup call way too cheerfully. And it goes all the way back to cavemen.

ImageYes, you heard it right, the cavemen. That’s who I blame for my nocturnal nature. It all makes sense if you think about. A lot of people believe in survival traits being passed down through generations to help keep people alive. For instance, it’s commonly believed that there used to be these super horrific gigantic poisonous spiders that lived in Africa and early people would avoid them because they killed people. So arachnophobia was created to help children and people who wouldn’t necessarily know about the killer spiders to fear them. The brain created a safeguard to keep people away from the danger. And there’ve been studies done now where people who have arachnophobia have been introduced to tarantulas who have had their fangs removed and they are still terrified. (Fyi, that would be me—I am TERRIFIED of spiders. You probably couldn’t even get me in the same vicinity as one, let alone close enough to see that its fangs were removed. Ugh!)

ImageBut the same kind of theory can be applied to my nocturnal nature. You see, I firmly believe that back in the day of the cavemen, there were huge ferocious saber tooth tigers. And like in Ice Age, sometimes they might have tried to hunt you while you were sleeping. The answer? Saber tooth watchmen. Some of the cave people probably stayed up all night watching out for saber tooth tigers and keeping everyone alive—the unsung heroes of the cave age. I think they were probably my ancestors and have passed along the nocturnal trait. Like with the spiders who have had their fangs removed, there isn’t really a threat of nighttime saber tooth attacks, but it doesn’t matter, the trait’s been ingrained in my mind as a safeguard. I was built for a different time, a dangerous time, when staying alive, meant sleeping during the day and keeping those you loved alive by staying awake all night.

Now all I have to do is convince my bosses, professors, friends, and family who haven’t really grasped the whole unsung hero thing just yet. For the time being, I’ll just have to struggle along and battle myself awake each morning. But every time someone says something about me sleeping in until one in the afternoon, I’ll remind myself that I was destined to thrive during the nighttime hours, and it takes a special kind of person to be trusted with saber watch.


One thought on “On Saber Watch

  1. vMonster says:

    I think my ancestors might have been on saber watch too. I’m definitely *not* a morning person!

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