How was that again?

This morning the alarm went off, as it does with depressing frequency, at an hour of the morning that features both penetrating darkness and bone-chilling coldness. My husband jumped out of bed with less enthusiasm than he would have for, say, the clatter of a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer out on the snowy lawn and tramped downstairs to his bathroom to take his shower.

I sat up yawning, thinking "Morning already?" and running my fingers through my pillow-smooshed hair to give me that really appealing Ludwig van Bedhead look. After clearing away a few cobwebs, I leaned across the bed to reach for the television remote in the hopes that I'd catch a weather report forecasting sun and sixty-seven degrees for central Indiana today and suddenly noticed the clock.

6:45?

Wait.....Isn't it Saturday?

I counted on my fingers -- Monday, yes. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday -- and noted that the previous days were all present and accounted for. So why, then, were my husband and I awake at 6:45 a.m.? Because Saturday is our day, right? When we get to sleep an hour later?

He came back into our bedroom, smelling of soap and shaving cream and carrying a pair of pants in the dry cleaner's plastic bag over his arm. Throwing those down on the bed, he went busily to the closet and chose a shirt, then turned to his dresser and excavated a pair of socks.

"Honey?" I asked him as he buttoned his shirt.

"Yeah?" he answered, pulling down his cuffs and straightening his collar.

"Are you meeting a client first thing this morning?"

"Nope."

"Then why are we up so early?"

"This is when we always wake up."

"Well, yeah," I said, gesturing at the clock. "This is when we always wake up during the week. But this is Saturday, dude."

He paused with a sock in his hand, mentally counting back the days -- I had to use my fingers, but he's smarter that way than I am -- and then said something that I can't repeat on a family blog. He looked regretfully at his pillow and mourned, "I cannot freaking believe I did this."

"Yes," I said eagerly, "but it has turned out to be a blessing after all, because now you have time to drive over to Burger King and bring me one of those croissant thingies, sausage and egg with no cheese."