Saturday morning cartoons

I couldn’t fall asleep today after Mom woke me up for fajir around 5:30 a.m. I lay up in bed with my eyes wide open and a thousand thoughts running in my head. My room was very cold and covering myself with the blankets didn’t improve the situation much, so I finally gave up on falling back asleep and gingerly walked out of my room, past the hall and my sleeping, snoring family, and down the stairs to the living room. It was all quite and peaceful, and I think I would’ve appreciated being alone if I wasn’t so grumpy. I’m always grumpy in the mornings. I plopped on the couch and arranged the fat pillows around myself. There was nothing else to do so I turned on the T.V. and searched for cartoons. There were plenty. I got engrossed in a couple and watched for an hour.

I still couldn’t fall asleep. I watched some more when I realized that it’s been so long since I’ve ran down to watch early Saturday morning cartoons, years in fact. It was a weekend ritual. Me and my brother had a deal that whomever woke up first would awaken the other and bring down a couple of pillows and blankets, tiptoe down to the T.V. and watch together until Mom woke up and made us breakfast. It’s been too long. Even the cartoons have changed. I remember watching pinky and the brain, Ben and Jerry, power rangers, tin-tin, inspector gadget, chicken and cow, and so many more. My poor little brother and sister, I feel they have been cheated out of a magical world. Sure, spongebob squarepants is mighty hilarious but there is so much to cartoons they will never know. I grieve for them. But I find it sweet and nostalgic that they’re doing the same things me and my brother have done years ago. Of course they’re not so careful. Sometimes I wake up to their loud chatter, giggles, and thumping down the creaky stairs. Next time, I think I’m going to wake them up earlier than usual and continue the childhood ritual with them, together.