Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Wait, there's one in the morning AND in the evening?

Amidst the various hecticities (is so, is so, is totally so a word!) of the last few weeks there was a 42-hour window where I had to work three shifts: one from 7ish(am) to 3ish(pm), then one from 10ish(pm) to 7ish(am) and then one from 3ish(pm) to midnightish(am? Man, that one always confuses me).

Understand that I still believe, despite recent evidence otherwise, that I’m 17 years old and can work for 24 hours in a row without even getting tired and only need 4 hours of sleep to be fresh as a daisy and other stupid, untrue things. And as such, I did this schedule to myself. (also I just couldn’t bear to do this to anyone else. Not since I was so young and spry and all.)

ANYWAY! I worked the first shift that morning and all was fine. I went home by way of a soccer game (watching, not playing) and some Jamba Juice (Razzmatazz, why must you tempt me so with your berry siren song?) and had about 4 hours to sleep before I had to be back for shift #2. And I’m thinking “no problem! I feed kitties, pack my bag of stuff for tonight, get up with 30 minutes for dinner and I’m there in no time!” (clearly I should also have been thinking “and later I’ll meet Debs and Scooter down on the Quad for coffee and a gab fest about our classes and how much Professor Smithers sucks with all the homework, and man am I lucky I’m so very, very young.”) I fed kitties and packed bag and flopped down on the couch for 4 hours of quality nap-sleep.

And I marveled at how bright the sun was outside and how very middle-of-the-afternoon it felt, and how not at all sleepy I was.

So I’m lying there watching tv and stressing that I’m not sleeping and flippy-flopping with not sleeping and realizing that if I were as spry as I think I am I wouldn’t even know enough to stress about not sleeping and thinking “why do I have to have a ‘coming-to-grips-with-my-maturity’ moment NOW???” But somewhere in there I DID fall asleep. A hard sleep. A rock-hard sleep. Sleep of the damned and all.

And then I woke up, and the morning was bright and crisp. And also it was the morning. The clocks all mocked me with their “6:30”ness and I FREAKED OUT BECAUSE I HAD SLEPT COMPLETELY THROUGH THE WHOLE OVERNIGHT SHIFT AAAAUUUUGGGHHH!!!! Now, properly inspired by the panic of the completely screwed, I grabbed my purse and shoes and was in the car and out of the driveway in about .2 seconds.

I RACE out to the location for these funky shifts at about “bat-out-of-hell” times 10. (Oh no, not conveniently close enough to be biked quickly, and therefore driven even more quickly. No, these shifts are out at “far away pavilion land”, which takes 15-20 min. to even drive there. Fabulous.) I’m all over my phone calling the managers who should be managing the thing that I didn’t come and do, and nobody is answering their damned phones! Exactly why do we have cell phones if not to answer them any time I call and need them? Plus, might I add, FREAKING OUT!!!

Finally I get a manager type and I explain my whole missing of my shift and the tremendous badness of same. And she is fine with it. She doesn’t even seem to understand what the heck I’m talking about. In fact, the tone of voice smacks of “oh darn, Femtastic has finally jumped the crazy shark of no saneness. Had to happen eventually.” So frustrated am I by her distinct lack of getting it that I hang up pretty quickly and start the turn-off to the last 5 minutes of the drive and hey, did my phone say PM?

Did my phone say that it’s 6:30PM?

Gosh, 6:30AM and 6:30PM sure do look similar this time of year! Except that would definitely be what we like to call “West” that the sun is melting down into.

CUH-RAP.


…I have no idea why I jumped immediately to 6:30AM. It never for even one second occurred to me that it could be only about 40 minutes after I’d fallen asleep. I knew, 100% knew, that it was the morning and no amount of it actually being the evening could slow me down!

So I turned the car around and drove the reverse route back home, at a much more reasonable “I am such a complete moron” pace. Of course now there’s enough adrenaline rushing through my system to reanimate Uma Thurman, so even though it’s 7PM when I get home it’s at least 8PM before my lids dip even a smidge. And that shift from 10ish to 7ish was SO MUCH LONGER than I’d hoped.

Lesson learned: I need AM/PMs on all my clocks. Or to work overnight less. (“or a husband” says a friend. Do they help with this stuff?)

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