Say hello to my little friend

It's apparent that my body wants to kill me. It's going to achieve this by not letting me sleep.

This morning's wake-up call? 1:42 a.m.

Much to be done, shouted my inner Jewish Mother. Much to be done! You need to get up and do that thing for work you've been putting off! You need to get up get up!

The inner Catholic Mother joined in the chorus - Don't go back to sleep! Don't even TRY! Even though you've set the alarm for 4 so you can get up to do what you need to do, just go ahead and do it now, because heaven help us all if you don't get it done and someone complains and you lose your job and your children go shoeless because of your selfish desire to SLEEP!

So, what'd I do?

I let them guilt me into it. I caved like a moist sinkhole under the pressure of the combined force of my imaginary archetypical religious stereotypes, and got up. Stumbling to the kitchen and computer at 2 a.m. is NOT my idea of fun, but there you go. I was there. Didn't even make coffee, because coffee at 2 a.m. is asking for a world of hurt.

Blearily, I started in to the work to be done, willing lethargic fingers to write and correct and overwrite and recorrect. The harsh blue glow of the screen bathed my face in a sickly pallor, so I'm sure I looked as crappy as I felt.

One hour. Two hours. Type-itty type-y. Focus on the words. Type-itty type. One set of comments down, then two, then three, then four and five were picked up and slammed into submission. I was on a veritable roll, at 2:30, then 3, then 4.

By 4:30 though, I was starting to get the wobbly weavey head swimmy thing going on, and the words on the screen started to blur before my eyes. I was trying in vain to summon up the guilt sisters again, but they'd long since gone back to sleep, having accomplished their nefarious work for the day. "No fair!" I thought. "I'm almost done! I'm so close I can smell success!"

But finishing the work was not to be, for at 4:32 a.m. my hands, of their own accord, simply shut the laptop. I couldn't go on. I started to shiver, my hands got very cold. I couldn't finish. I had to go back to bed. Something that felt a lot like my inner reptilian was getting ready to hibernate, and I've learned to listen to it, for to ignore THIS inner voice is to invite disaster.

So, the long crawl up the stairs and back into bed was rather like climbing the golden stairs toward the pearly gate. Salvation was almost mine. Sleep, sweet sleep, was beckoning me again into its warm embrace.

And lo, it was so very good that I slept through the alarm. Again.

Sigh.

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TOPIC CHANGE.

Place: WalMart, by the layaway counter
Time: Sunday afternoon

Shopping with the Things for some much-needed things, it was time to hit the head for some bladder relief. That small Diet Coke from Hardee's was begging to be set free.

Left the Things in charge of the cart, and started to follow an extremely old woman wearing a dusty tweed jacket and skirt into the relief station. Was cut off by a very tall woman with obvious hip dysplasia, whose lurching gait made me sway involuntarily in time to her stagger.

Vowed to be patient with those less fortunate than me.

Tall woman was now in position #2, with old woman in the lead. We're not moving very fast, obviously, but I think it would be rude to plow ahead of them and so I shuffle along behind.

Once inside the door, old woman begins to raise her skirt. The tops of knee highs can be seen. Three more steps and the bottom of a girdle makes it hesitant way onto the scene. Old woman begins to walk in a rather wide-legged stance.

Tall woman ducks into the nearest stall.

Old woman, stooped with age and the weight of deathly determination, pushes one door open, rejects the option, raises her skirt high enough to clutch at her princess bits, and staggers onward, her uncombed silver hairdo shaking with the effort under her 50-year-old wool church hat.

At the next stall, thanks to all the gods, she finds something to her liking.

I proceed onward to the handicapped stall, not caring at the seeming incongruity of it because really, there couldn't BE too many more folks who truly qualified to use it anywhere in the vicinity, now could there? Both of them were HERE, with ME.

You know what? It's very hard to stoop and pee when you're shaking with laughter. Just thought y'all should know.