The Luv Doc: Early Morning Texts

Dear Luv Doc,

I love my boyfriend's mother. She is a very sweet lady from a small town in East Texas and a bit of a busybody. I also love that she keeps in touch with her son regularly, but I'm not so in love with when she calls and texts, which is almost always between 6 and 8 in the morning. My boyfriend and I both work at a Downtown club and are routinely up until well after midnight. It doesn't matter. I have actually heard him tell his mother that he worked until 2am the night before. She apologizes, but then goes right back to it. Three or four times a week we get woken up at the crack of dawn so my boyfriend can hear stories about his baby nephew or his mom's garden, or some crazy thing the pastor said in church. Honestly, it would be totally charming after 10am but when I hear her cackling through his phone early in the morning I want to scream. So tell me, how do I get this to end? Do I call my boyfriend's mom and beg her to respect our boundaries, or do I throw his phone in the river because he never remembers to turn it off at night?

– Sleep Starved on South First

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You really hit the jackpot on this one because it involves two of my least favorite things: texting and being woken up too early in the morning. Here's the deal: I like confused, disoriented old folks and other people's children just as much as the next fellow, and if duty calls on me to phone in a report of a silver 1993 Buick Skylark that's swerving along in the left lane of I-35 doing 45 miles an hour, I'm in, pretty much. The same goes for some 8-year-old being dragged kicking and screaming through the Walmart toy aisle by some sketchy looking dude in a "World's Greatest Dad" T-shirt. Yeah, that kid might just be a spoiled little shit who didn't get the Jetson Hoverboard he wanted, but it's no skin off my knuckles to call in an anonymous tip and have Johnny Law come put the thumbscrews to both of them and see what shakes out. If you see something, say something, right?

Of course that's the ideal me. The one who's had plenty of sleep the night before. The one who rolls out of bed ideally sometime after 10am. Hey, don't judge me. I didn't move to this sleepy little college town so I could crack it up at 6am and hustle off to feed the insatiable, gaping maw of mammon. Anyway, yes, the well-rested me is usually down for some occasional civil service and good Samaritaning, but then I get a screeching phone alert from DPS at 6 in the morning telling me the shadows of somebody's meemaw and pawpaw are wandering off somewhere, all I can think about is how much further they could have fucking gotten by 10am. Wait a minute, that's not entirely true: I also usually have some sort of vivid image of myself smashing out the windows of burning cop cars with a baseball bat.

Yes, I know that sounds a bit extreme, but when I get woken up out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night, I often find out that my unconscious mind travels to some very dark places. Seriously, how many fucking children are abducted at 5 in the morning? I would like to see the statistics. I am not an uncompassionate man, but I have noticed that the DPS never sends out Amber Alerts at 1am. Seems pretty fucking suspicious to me. Now the old folks, I sort of get it. They have tiny bladders and insomnia and they always want to hit the road early to avoid the traffic, but once again, how far are they going to get doing 45 in the left lane and stopping every 10 minutes to pee? They're not going to make it across the border. You know they forgot their passports.

Now, your mother-in-law is clearly not as diabolical as the Texas DPS, and if you lose your shit and get all cranky with a bunch of small-town East Texans, things will not go well for you, so for your health and well-being, I am going to suggest a bit of tactful diplomacy. I would start with your boyfriend because you've got a bit more leverage there. First thing on the list is for him to call or text his mother and tell her he will no longer be available via talk or text until, well, ideally noon if you work in clubs, but y'all can pick a time. Then, kindly request that he start charging his phone in some other room in the house; that way, if the goddamned DPS starts in with their 6am Amber Alerts, at least the annoying screeching will be distant. Maybe he could charge his phone inside a sealed Yeti cooler? They're pricey but maybe they'll give me some sort of kickback if they read this. The important thing is that you need to start establishing boundaries yesterday, or eventually your relationship, and arguably your health, will suffer, and let's be honest: Suffering is for people who wake up before 10am. Am I right?