Friday, August 29, 2008

Note to Self

My Dear Jack,

I regret to inform you of a policy change which will significantly affect the scope of your responsibilities, and the liberties you may take in interpreting them henceforward. By way of elucidating the motivation behind this decision, I would ask you to remember that, while we maintain the utmost respect for your rights as an individual, it is essential—for your sake as well as ours—that you in turn respect the obligations that apportion to your role as a stakeholder in the aggregate of Jacks both present and future, which may be thought of as encompassing the atemporal quality defined as “Jackness”.

To wit: It has come to our attention that for some years now, you have—in an outright contravention of the wishes of Evening Jack and an apparently willful denial of the projected desires of Future Jack—been taking it upon yourself to decide that the agreed-upon time for Jacks to wake up in the morning (which, we will note, is marked by the ringing of an alarm clock that will have been set by a previous Jack who is just as entitled to a stake in overall Jackness as you are) may be postponed indefinitely to suit your own needs.

This cannot be allowed to stand. We recognize that your duties as a Jack—getting out of bed, dressing, grappling anew with the soul-shattering realization that one day must of necessity follow upon another—are not perhaps quite so enriching as those of (for instance) Bedtime Jack, Snuggletime Jack, or Beach-Fun Jack, but we must implore you to sacrifice your own fleeting comforts to a greater good that will benefit all of us in the long run.

We are quite certain that matters will not proceed this far, but we feel it our duty to warn you that a failure to make improvements based on this appeal to your better judgment will result in punitive sanctions. It is not in our power to physically prevent you from hitting the “Snooze” button after you have read this note, but we can, if pressed, ensure that future Morning Jacks wake up without bedding, air-conditioning, an absence of air-horns, or indeed any of the material comforts to which you have become accustomed—and which you have evidently begun to take for granted.

Please take this all in on your own time, and once you are fully awake, hand over the reigns to Breakfast Jack. Do not go back to bed.

Yours always,


The Jacks