Mothers, I tell ya...

Mother: Its nearing midnight, beta. What time do you have to get up? What time is your flight to Goa?
Son: Have to be at the airport at 4:30 AM. Will be up by 3:30. But you dont have to get up like this everyday. Its quite unnecessary.
Mother: You already had a long sleepless day today travelling to Delhi, that too with a delayed return flight. You must be tired, I will wake you up.
Son: I am ok, amma. I am not a child anymore. There are alarms at home. You dont have to stay up.
Mother: What if, by chance, you oversleep and miss the flight?
Son: I wont oversleep. I will be up by 3:30 and make sure I am at the airport by 4:30. Please go to sleep, amma.
Mother: (reluctantly) Ok. Fine, if you say so. (retires to bed)

Its 3:30 in the morning already. Son wakes to the shrill trill of the mobile alarm. Sleep is overwhelming and pulling him selfishly back to the bed and the mind is relentlessly trying to stir him up forcing thoughts of what needs to be accomplished in the day, the tele-booked flight tickets that he needs to collect 2 hours before the flight, the presentation about which he has no inkling, that he has to prepare in the flight for that meeting at 10 in front of the big shots of the company. He drags himself out of the bed, barely able to keep his eyes open and makes way to the bathroom, only to be greeted by amma waiting with a cup of coffee.