The Saturday Morning Experience

I'd estimate a good 60% of the Western World's population work a standard 9am-5pm Monday-Friday week. I'd also estimate that a good 60% percent of those people suffer from the following problem:

Human Beings cannot appreciate Saturdays.

We work for 5 days, waking up at some ungodly hour and praying to that same god to be granted another 5 minutes in bed. The room is cold, dark and unfriendly; the inside of the bed is warm, soft and snuggly. We would sacrifice our mothers for that extra 5 minutes, and we wish with all our hearts that we were mistaken, and that it was actually Saturday, and that we could roll over and savour the fact that we have another few hours in bed.

The whole week is spent thus, waiting and longing for Saturday, which, when it finally dawns, is a huge disappointment. One of two processes occurs to ruin the occasion: either, having turned the alarm off the previous evening, you wake up at the same ungodly time regardless, and cannot get back to sleep or even just lie there to save your life, but have to get up and stumble around until the rest of the world wakes up; or, having partied Friday night away, you wake up midway through Saturday morning 5 minutes before you had to get up anyway, and cannot enjoy the lie-in you had so been looking forward to.

The solution to this mind-bending problem is simple: trick the mind into thinking it's a weekday, before reminding it that it is in fact Saturday. All this really requires to work is a well-prepared mind, ready to do whatever is necessary to convince your brain, still groggy and weary at this time in the morning, that it is not Saturday, and that no extra-five minutes in bed can be gained, no matter how much you want them.

This may involve deliberately not-unsetting your alarm on Friday night, or changing your watch/computer clock such that it displays the previous day's date. Common sense says that since you were the one doing this, you ought to remember that it is Saturday immediately upon being woken, but common sense does not function before about 9am. Then, having dressed yourself sleepily and made your way to the kitchen for breakfast, you need something to alert you to the fact that it is, in fact, Saturday morning. This could be a large piece of paper with "IT'S SATURDAY YOU IDIOT! GO BACK TO BED!" emblazoned on it, or an alert on your mobile phone, or even a recorded message set to play when you turn on the radio.

Once your sozzled memory is jogged and you remember that it is Saturday, you are so grateful for this simple fact that the rest of the morning is spent in blissful appreciation of Saturday mornings, either dozing in and out of a dreamless sleep, or curled up with a favourite book.

At last, the problem that has plagued mankind for centuries has been solved.