We’ve officially established that the use of a snooze button is completely psychosomatic and that using a snooze button can be suggestive. In other words, after reading my blog about my 9 minutes of bliss, my sister apparently now uses her snooze button. Hopefully she gets as much delight in her extra 9 minute intervals as I do.

My thoughts on this, though, are that I am such a creature of habit that I have a perverse obstinate disposition to go to great lengths to make sure my 9-Minute Intervals do not change. And this is worrying me. For instance, my dog has decided when the alarm goes off the first time that he really REALLY needs to go outside RIGHT THEN. And I hate to be woken up – or actually get out of bed - before my 4th 9-Minute sequence has run its course. So I stumble to take him out, but then of course I have to feed him and he eats outside so hopefully I have clothes on that won’t scare the neighbors and then of course, the cats hear the scrape of a food bowl and they decide their bowl isn’t full enough so I have to fill up their bowls too. And yes, I have tried to ignore them since their bowl does have food in it usually at all times and stumble back to bed but they will ceaselessly meow outside my bedroom door since I made an appearance and they feel slighted if I don’t feed them too. THEN I have to go to the bathroom because if I don’t, I can’t go back to sleep because I have to go to the bathroom. By that time, I should stay up because HELLO, I’m wide awake. But I don’t. I go back to bed and then strike up a bargain to sleep an extra 5 ½ minutes since I’ve already taken the dog out, fed him, fed the cats and went to the bathroom. SEE? It’s a vicious vicious cycle and I’m powerless to change it.

THEN I remember that ‘sloth’ is one of the seven deadly sins. NICE. Google sloth. See what you come up with. I was actually reassured by wikipedia in that “The meaning of sloth as a vice closely follows the meaning of the Greek word "akedia": "absence of caring". A student who neglects his studies to pursue another interest, such as martial arts or filming, does not necessarily commit the sin of sloth. Perhaps he should restructure his priorities, but the student does not necessarily display a spiritual decay, a lack of interest in anything, and thus is not slothful. A student who took no interest in anything requiring great effort, but preferred to indulge in idle entertainment, might well be slothful.”

So can I assume that an insurance agent who hates to get up in the morning because she’s not a morning person is not necessarily committing the sin of sloth but one who didn’t get up at all since it requires great effort but preferred to sleep all day in idle slumber might well be slothful? It’s not that I have an absence of caring about getting up. I just don’t like to.