POWER PLAY: AND NOW FOR A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

I am a creature of the night. While not quite nosferatu -- no aversions to garlic, crucifixes or crazed 19th century Englishmen wielding pointed sticks -- I studiously avoid direct sunlight, at least before noon.

If man had been meant to wake up early, he wouldn't have needed to invent the snooze button.

I am fortunate enough to have a job where I have need for neither a snooze button nor the alarm clock to which such devices are attached. I can sleep until I'm done, and -- if I choose -- sleep some more.

I don't have to endure the daily ordeal of being ripped by a horrible screeching sound from a wonderful dream in which I am the top defenseman in the NHL, lead singer in a famous rock band and the most powerful man in American politics to the sober reality that I am actually just a very tired person who has to crawl out of his nice, warm, cosy bed while it is still dark out to get ready for work.

Many people find this daily ritual too much to bear and pound the snoozer a half-dozen times until they blearily realize they are now running extremely late and have to spend their first waking moments of the day hectically showering, shaving and hoping they won't get fired after being late for the 7,936th consecutive time.

Rather than starting the day in a mad frenzy, I prefer to ease into things. It's a lot less stressful.

After achieving consciousness, I lay still for a few minutes until I feel my eyes can cope with the light enough to risk opening them. Phase two involves remaining prone with eyes open. When I'm up to it, I head for stage three -- moving to a sitting position. After a few minutes of this, and perhaps a couple chapters of whatever book I'm reading, I'm finally ready to face the world.

Since I work nights, this is a fine schedule: Stay up late; sleep late; go to work. I don't think I could cope with the supposedly normal 8-to-5 routine that most people prefer.

As a night owl, I ingest large measures of late night television, which differs from what is seen during the day.

The most noticeable difference involves commercials. There are still, of course, the standard inane spots which try to expound the benefits of a totally new and improved, longer lasting, better tasting, family-sized, industrial-strength, low-fat, reduced-sodium, sugar-free, advanced whitening formula gnat repellent. However, except for the physic sex chat party date phone lines, few late night commercials actually try to sell you something. Instead you get an overdose of public service announcements.

Public service announcements, or PSAs as broadcast types call them, are those spots which either ask you not to do something bad, try to guilt you into doing something good or tell you how screwed up your life is.

It's amazing how many of these things are on. Sometimes you can watch for hours without ever seeing a real commercial.

The people behind PSAs must think that illiterate, drug addicted, depressed, cigarette smoking, anorexic alcoholics who beat their wives, drive while intoxicated, fail to watch their cholesterol or sign organ donor cards and don't recycle do their primary television viewing between the hours of midnight at 6 a.m.

Even if you are a sober, well-adjusted, caring person who donates to charity and is aware that only you can prevent forest fires, after a dozen of these in a row you are guilty enough to check yourself into Charter Hospital; remove your kidneys with a kitchen knife and send them to someone on dialysis; and dedicate your life to teaching disadvantaged American kids to call "soccer" by it's correct name of "football" like everyone else in the world.

This guilt thing is exactly why stations banish these things to times of day when hardly anyone is watching.

Television is entertainment. People don't want to watch and feel inferior, selfish or insecure; they want to watch other people who feel that way. That is why sleazy daytime television talk shows are so popular.

And that is yet another reason to sleep in. I'll take PSAs over Oprah and Rikki Lake any day.

~Marc Powers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.