Those Damn Dings

~ Bitchy After 60

Who decided that seniors like to get up early? It seems to be the general consensus on the subject of senior sleep habits. I will admit that a whole lot of them do. My mother used to love to call me and tell me all she accomplished before 9:AM; and all I wanted to do was hang up on her because I really wasn’t interested in a competition. I have several family members who get up so early every day, and I have come to believe that they are afraid of not getting enough life out of their days before they eventually kick it. These people come across as anal and stressed and terrified. Haven’t they realized that it is quality not quantity time that is important?

Well I am here to tell you that we don’t all like early mornings. Both my husband and I are never in a rush to wake up and get out of bed in the morning. Neither of us see any good reason to get up and start doing things before the sun. As a matter of fact rolling out of bed somewhere between nine and nine-thirty often works for me just fine, unless I want to go for an early paddle while the lake is calm or I have a specific thing on my calendar. My husband, even though he was an early riser when he worked, now stays under the covers later and later, which works fine for me because the house rule is last one out, makes the bed. 

My point about these early people is that they seem to think that everyone else keeps their hours. These people like to send text messages at four, five and six in the morning without thinking that the ding, ping, pong, or whatever other sound our phones will make just might wake us up. Once I am awake, it is difficult to get back to sleep. Once I am awake, oh yes and pissed off, my brain kicks in and goes on an inner rant directed at the sender of the text. Then follows up with a rant against all the past senders of such texts. Proof positive that I don’t forgive and forget, ever. It can take hours for me to get back to sleep. 

There was a time when you never called anyone between certain hours of the night and early morning unless it was an emergency. It was considered inconsiderate since it could wake up the sleeping household. So what happened? When did it become ok to wake someone with a text message during these same hours?

Most of us now rely on cellphones. Many of us have gotten rid of our landlines so the cellphone is the only point of contact, especially for an emergency. Our phones sit on our bed tables, right next to our heads, right next to our ears, and those damn dings wake people up. They definitely wake me up. These dings are absolutely necessary if it is an emergency, say my mother ended up in the hospital, or my son was in an accident; but really, think about it and think about how much I will curse anyone who sends a message and wakes me up for anything less outside of reasonable waking hours. 

Thank you for reading.

Photos: Jenn Stone

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32 thoughts on “Those Damn Dings”

  1. It doesn’t seem smart for me to admit I get up every morning between 4:30-5:30 a.m. Would I sleep until 6:30 or 7 if I could, sure, but I can’t. I just wake up at that time, but I do not text anyone at that hour. I haven’t been able to sleep until 9 in so many years, I can’t remember when. I do have a friend who can sleep until 9 every day, and I applaud her and now you. 🙂

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  2. I used to be like you and rise later in the morning, but as I get older… rapidly approaching 62… I find myself being unable to sleep in. My husband has always gotten up at 4:00am which drives me nuts. I usually roll out of bed between 5:30 and 6:00 now, though I’m slow to get fully charged. And I never, ever call or text before 9:00.
    😉

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  3. I must admit I’ve often been guilty of waking people in the nights with texts. I’d be on nightshift and getting my thoughts marshalled and remember I needed to tell someone something important so thought “I’ll just do it now” – never occurred to me they’d have their phone switched on overnight. Mine is off 23 hours and 59 minutes per day – I just switch it on to check for texts (when I remember). Of course, I do still have my landline though…

    It used to annoy me when I was sleeping off nights and someone would ring my landline – for a while it was in my bedroom. It soon moved out of the bedroom and the ringer got switched off upstairs. These people would be some cold-caller and I’d tell them they’d woken me up sleeping off nights. They’d still continue with their trying to sell me something so I’d have to hang up on them.

    I’ve never been an early-morning person. I think, for older people, it’s a bad idea as it’s way colder in a morning and often dark as well so getting up early means you use lots more electricity!

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  4. Yes!!! You have exactly nailed this issue! What is it with people thinking that because I’m of a certain age that I’m going to be up at the crack of whatever humming and clicking my heels? Ugh. I have never, ever been a natural early riser except when I’ve had to be for work or an appointment. M is the same.

    Now that I’m retired I get up when I feel like it, which might be 10, 11, whatever … And like you, if I’m awakened, I might be awake for a couple of hours, so then I really need to sleep in. My natural setpoint is “night owl” which worked very well for work but morning lark? Only when forced. And oh yes, you will never get a text from me at 4:00 a.m.

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  5. I’ve always been an early morning person but I also fall asleep early and really like it because the world hasn’t started yet, so I can lounge around not doing anything, it’s not a time spent getting things done like some people do, and I just like that it’s quiet. I usually turn off my ringer at night and think that most people do as well. if I think of something I want to tell someone, I write it down or text it to myself and send it later

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    1. I also appreciate the quiet of mornings and since my husband is slower to get up than I am, I still get to enjoy them. No matter what time I get up, I prefer to do it slowly and ease into my day. It’s whatever works no matter the time, right?

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  6. I also keep my phone by my bedside, but I turn the volume off. Still, I sometimes hear it buzz or the screen lights up when someone sends a message. My brother on the East Coast (three hours ahead) sometimes sends a text that wakes me up.

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  7. It amazes me how text messages have “taken over.” A whole lot of people spend a whole lot of time in text message conversations. This probably means that fewer phone calls are being made, compared to 10 or more years ago. There’s something addictive about text messaging, it seems.

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  8. I get it, I actually set my phone to sleep until 7am. Only my mom’s number was allowed to ring, then later I had to add my brothers’ in case it was about her. I love to sleep and although some of our activities require an early rise, I usually sleep until my body wakes up. It’s never as late as 9 sadly, usually by 7:30 or 8. But I’m also not a night owl, so I usually get 8 or more hours of sleep. Maggie

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  9. I put my phone on airplane mode when I go to sleep. And since I get up like other annoying morning people at 4: 35- 5 a.m., switching the notifications on by then is good enough for me.

    I keep telling myself, what can I do if something happens at 2:00 a.m. without a car?

    Or even with a car…

    I don’t know. Even being a morning person I need my sleep and I switch the thing on airplane mode just to keep it from dinging.

    The other thing is, I have to get up to pee a couple of times a night. If I’m really worried, I can always quickly glance at my phone then. Turn airplane mode off, no emergency, turn it back on, go pee, go back to bed. 🤷‍♀️

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    1. I think I will start using the Do Not Disturb option because you can set exceptions. My problem is that I will probably forget to turn it on. It will be like my retainers. I need to make sure they are somewhere highly visible to remember to put them in at night. I am usually running on autopilot by bedtime. So I will also need to set a reminder to tell me to turn on the DND option. I am beginning to think that my phone has way to much power over my life.

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    1. I like some me time in the morning as well. These days my husband sleeps longer than I do so I get quiet mornings quite often. They just start later than a lot of other people’s.
      I have a 96 year old mother so I need the phone close by and on just in case something happens.

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  13. This post resonates with me because it seems every single entity I schedule appointments with…barbers, dentists, HVAC maintenance, etc. all subscribe to the firing off of confirmation and reminder texts at 8 AM. Whether it is days in advance or the morning of, all those texts land first thing. We are early risers so it is no issue, but I have a text sound that plays when a new one comes in and if I have the sound up on the phone when a text hits…let’s just say in the AM that text has my FULL attention. 🙂

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