As an esteemed and highly reputable journalist — or something thereabouts — I’ve had the luxury of working in this field for longer than most folks my age. Really, I started dabbling in the field about a decade ago in high school, although it wasn’t really serious until the start of my sophomore year in college.

Journalists are strange creatures. They flock to jobs in a dying industry (although it’s not dying as fast as most folks think), they make jokes few understand (about things like double trucks and dangling participles), and they are more often than not behind the times (one recently departed co-worker still has no home computer and furrowed his brow every time someone mentioned “the Twitter”).

For those stuck working at daily newspapers, they may also be stuck keeping very erratic sleep schedules.

See, that newspaper you pick up off your driveway every mornin–

Okay, work with me here. Pretend that this is 40 years ago, and no tablets or iPads exist. There’s no online edition for the New York Times, no by-the-second feed through BlackBerry or a fancy new app. This is good old-fashioned Americana, where Beaver Cleaver reigns supreme, baseball is the country’s pastime and going steady with your sweetheart means more of a commitment than a drunken night of sex in a seedy hotel room.

Got that wholesome picture in your mind? Good.

That newspaper on the driveway each morning has to be produced sometime, and in the case of most daily papers, that means late-night shifts. It’s probably the part of this job I’ve grown to hate the most — it means that 9-to-5, Monday through Friday shifts simply don’t exist. And don’t get me wrong, I knew the risks when I signed up.

Still, as I toil away on a typical Friday night, it makes me miss the simple things. Like having a social life that could exist on more than just my day off. Or looking forward to the weekend when it was … the weekend, and not a Tuesday-Wednesday masquerading as fun time party time.

But the thing I miss more than anything is a semi-regular sleep schedule. I’ve always been the type of person who struggles to go to bed immediately after getting off of work. Back in high school, I worked at a grocery store and got stuck with the closing shift more often than not. Closing time was 11, and I knew I had to be up by 6 to catch the bus across town to get to school — but I still couldn’t go to sleep before midnight.

That situation has stayed pretty similar, only closing time at the paper has occasionally meant 1 or 2 in the morning. You can do the math.

The clear line in the sand has always been sunrise. Sunrise means “oh crap, it’s getting waaaaaay too late to be awake still.” See, in my mind, tomorrow doesn’t start until after I wake up the next day. Some people like to be cute and starting talking about a new “today” at 12:01 a.m., but not me. That means dodging sunrise is a must, because suddenly I have a much tougher argument.

The moral of the story? Maybe your parents are right, kids. Maybe getting a full night’s sleep at a regular time is a good thing. So go get an honest job and stay away from the degenerates like us journalists.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s 4:30 in the morning and I have an overdue appointment with my pillow.