Slumber.

A long night's respite. A peaceful, blessed lull, safe in warmth and darkness, receding from the worries and pressures of an ever-accelerating world.

But it's time to awaken now, my friend. It's time to face the morning light, and the challenges that lie ahead.

Because this? This could be the day.

This could be the day when you swing your legs out over the bed, and step in something you didn't leave there the night before.

This could be the day you knock your toothbrush into the toilet.

This could be the day when you bump your head against the shower nozzle, and it flies off of your skull and into the tile, and you get doused with a spray so hard it's like you're reinacting the Watts riots through nude interpretive dance.

This could be the day your cat coughs up something made of purple yarn and containing exactly three plastic googley eyes, and you spend every idle moment wondering what it could have been.

This could be the day when your coworker in the adjoining cube emits some gas so foul even he can't stand it, and he has to leave. But you're stuck there smelling it, because you know your boss is on her way to take a look at some numbers. And all you can think about besides how sepulchrally foul it smells is that your boss is going to think it was you. And she does.

This could be the day you get ticketed, subpeonaed, audited, and develop an allergy to your favorite comfort food.

This could be the day your home team loses, your portfolio crashes, your favorite band breaks up, and the last politician you trust is indicted.

Today, one of your teeth could start making a noise when you chew.

Today, a bright-eyed, spirited child could run up and punch you in the groin.

This could be the day your mother changes her Facebook status from married to it's complicated.

Of all of the bowel movements you will ever have in your lifetime, one of them has to be the worst. This could be the day for it.

Oh yes, my friend. This could be the day you give a client presentation and you experience a wardrobe malfunction worse than anything ever seen in the Super Bowl or the Chronicles of Narnia.

This could be the day you discover that your right nipple and left nipple have been switched, but you can neither prove it nor properly explain the urgency of the situation.

This could be the day you fail to win fast money on Family Feud when you are prompted to name a type of fish not sold in seafood stores and you respond with "Aquaman."

This could be the day you are forced to choose between skinning a clown with a piccolo or obtaining an accurate count of all pickles sold to lactose intolerant bellhops of Lithuanian descent between 1984 and 1993, excluding 1986 and any day when Molly Ringwold wasn't wearing panties.

This could be the day you start getting nosebleeds every time you see a corn dog.

This could be the day you get a coupon in the mail for 5 cents off any avocado purchase totalling twenty dollars or more, and your neighbors lynch you in a fit of jealous rage.

This could be the day you are shaken vigorously over a fresh garden salad by an exceptionally large nearsighted woman who has mistaken you for a bottle of Bacos.

The day is new. The day is magical, full of hope, wonder, and infinite possibility. Make it yours, my friend, make it yours.

Carpe diem.

That's Latin for "Get the fuck off my couch."

Copyright 2009 Robert T. Balder and Timothy F. Crist