I love Women's Health Magazine, I really do. After many years of new subscriptions and subsequent subscription purges, it's the one magazine I always keep receiving. But in recent months, they've had these really pretentious "Own Your Morning" articles where women who apparently don't have to actually work and have an abundance of free time share their morning routines, and I find it obnoxious. No average woman I know has that time in their day! These women do workouts and have brunches and read books and stuff, all before their workday? Puh-leeze!
If I wrote one of these "Own Your Morning" articles, it would look like this:
GREET THE MORNING At 4:00 a.m., the donkey brays. The witching hour has ended, and the donkey lets us know. We have survived another night, and the donkey wakes us up to make sure we know. SCRAMBLE THE DRESSING My alarm goes off at 5:00 a.m. and it's immediately off to work. I feed the guinea pig and let the dog out while throwing on scrubs and running a brush through my hair. If I am fast enough, I'll swipe some eye shadow and mascara on, but often I go sans make-up. There's no time for it. The day is calling. ORDER THE BREAKFAST As I warm up the car at 5:40 a.m., I open up my Starbucks app and order a coffee and an oatmeal. I like that I can customize all the options in the app so I can limit the sugar and fat in my beverage. I hate their coffee regardless, but my breakfast will be ready for me and I don't have to wait in line. HUNT THE FIRST PATIENT At 6:15 a.m. I am at worked and clocked in. I scarf breakfast while skimming charts of my patient list for the day. Then it's off to lurk about the floor to see who is awake. Whoever I find first becomes the lucky victim who gets their physical therapy before the facility serves breakfast. That's the price you pay for being an early bird. MORNING CAFFEINE BREAK The coffee wears off around 9:00 a.m., so it's off to Tom Tom Espresso next door for my next caffeine fix, either another coffee or a flavored RedBull. Sometimes I'll even get a sugar cookie because at that point I don't care about healthy, I'm just trying to stay awake through all my treatments. CHART FRANTICALLY My morning ends at 11:45 a.m. when the facility serves lunch. I either microwave a Lean Cuisine or order Uber Eats and consume my food hunched over my computer, charting on all my morning patients between bites. If I'm working in multiple facilities, I'll scramble to my car and make a mad dash across town to the next building, pausing only for another coffee. When you're on the go, you can never have enough coffee!
