I have a sleep disorder. It manifested itself around the age of 14 and has tortured me off and on ever since. Strangely enough I did not exhibit any symptoms until the introduction of the electric alarm clock into my life and with it, the annoying snooze button. No doctor has been able to help me and there is apparently no cure for “Fivemoreminuteitis” – I am doomed to live with this ailment for the rest of my days.

It is an unpredictable ailment since I am never able to predetermine when it will strike again. During my teenage years I suffered the most; mornings were painful as the monster had me firmly in its grip and I was forced to succumb to it totally. There were days I crawled out of bed with the full intention of going to school, yet my disease made it impossible and coerced me mercilessly to find a place to go to back to sleep. Some days I could satisfy the demon by napping on the bus, others the urge would be so overwhelming that I would end up dragging myself into the basement and falling into a coma like state on the cold cement floor.

As I grew older and had children the disease thankfully retreated somewhat. Perhaps it was taking pity on me since I had to wake early feeding babies and changing diapers. I cannot imagine being attacked by this monster while trying to do those things and may have ended up with a diaper on my sons head a bottle in his you-know-what. Imagine the horror!

My 20s and 30s consequently were thankfully void of Fivemoreminuteitis (although I am straining to remember much of my 20s probably due to the fact that I never slept anyway and spent all my nights out partying).

Going into my 40s the monster has risen again; only this time, it also demanded my sons complete devotion without mercy. It must be genetic and I carry with me a great guilt over having passed on such a horrid and merciless disease. My youngest is afflicted with it the worst – he will sleep for 16-18 hours at a time, sometimes missing daylight altogether. Now that it had my sons firmly in its grip it turned to me and said, “I missed you honey! Come back to papa!”

So here I am again, afflicted with an incurable ailment that appears to be most active during weekdays and strangly enough never affects me on Saturdays and Sundays (I am up at 7 am both days!); it has taught me over the years how to brush my teeth with the right hand, my hair with the left and jump into my shoes at the same time; it has perfected my skill to be out of bed and off to work in less than 20-25 minutes (causing the envy of a few exes); it has kept my face free of gunk since I never put on make-up in the morning and made me very efficient at time management.

Perhaps I should be grateful to Fivemoreminuteitis and learn to appreciate the gifts it gives me in return for partial narcolepsy?