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Folks, I'm just here to apologize. And I apologize for that. For which I'm very sorry. And my condolences for being sorry. And I apologize for --
Oh, enough of this crap already!
(Sorry, sorry. That was uncalled for. I apologize. For the last time. Or just for now. Whatever.)
Anyway, as I hope that little 'effort' clearly shows, I've had a rough day, kiddies. I don't want to bore you with the lowlights... but then again, I don't want a lot of things. Sometimes life doesn't go the way we'd like it to, you know? So here are a few tidbits from my past twenty-four hours:
Sometime after midnight (so technically today, but still feeling like yesterday), I lost my right contact lens as I was getting rready for bed. The water was running, and our drain stopper doesn't work, and I'm pretty sure it was just whooshed right on down the sink. Maybe one of the feral gators that live in the sewers can use it; I don't know.
What I do know, though, is that I'm essentially blind without my contacts. So, I looked for that backup set of contacts that I never ordered after getting my new prescription a couple of months ago. Mysteriously, they weren't there! (Spooky, no?)
So, I checked all my old contact cases, and found exactly one contact, an ill-fitting, uncomfortable, out-of-date left lens in the back of the medicine cabinet. But what the hell -- any old piece of plastic in your eye in a pnch, right? And a crappy contact is better than no contact, at least when you have my dysfunctional eyeballs, so I soaked the thing in saline overnight and went to bed.
Next came morning. (As it so often does after nighttime. These are real gems, people -- pay attention here.) I had an early meeting this morning, so I'd set the alarm for about two hours before I'd normally get up. And so, of course, despite way too few hours of sleep and general exhausted crankiness, I woke up. Twenty minutes before the alarm was set to go off. Bitches!
Twenty minutes is the absolute worst amount of time you can have left in bed. A half-hour would be fine -- you can get some real sleeping done in a half a damned hour. Two minutes is fine -- hey, you beat the alarm, and didn't have to listen to it blaring on and on before pulling your sorry sheet-wrinkled ass out of bed. Bully for you. But twenty minutes? That's a friggin' nightmare! All you can do is lie there, not sleeping because you know the alarm's gonna go off as soon as you do, and not getting up because... well, dammit, because you have twenty whole minutes of bed-time left, and you'll be damned if you're giving that up without a fight, a court order, and a cadre of fucking Clydesdales to drag you away from it. This is America, people. The right to sleep is, like, the Ninth Amendment or something. You can look it up.
Anyway, here's a summary of the twenty minutes I spent in bed this morning, circa seven in the fricking a.m.:
'Hurnngh? Wha? Oh. I'm awake. Shit, it's light outside. Is it time to get up yet?
Hmm, no. Still twenty minutes to go. Damn. Why'd I set an alarm again? Oh, the meeting, right. Well, maybe I can get in another nap before the alarm goes off.
*brief pause as I try to sleep*
Is it time yet? What time is it now?
Oh. Damn. Now there's only eighteen minutes before the alarm goes off. I'd better get to sleep quick.
*pause*
I wonder if I'm hungry. I thought when I went to bed last night that I might be hungry in the morning. Am I hungry? Hmmm... nope. Not hungry.
What time is it now?
Poop. Seventeen minutes. Better work on that nap.
*pause*
Gotta sleep, gotta sleep, gotta sleep... am I asleep yet? No. How about now? No. Now?
Dammit, stop thinking about sleep and go to fricking sleep before it's too late!
Too late? What time is it, anyway? Jeez, only twelve minutes left. This is gonna be one short nap.
I can't believe I'm not falling asleep. I'm just wasting good snooze time. Why the hell am I getting up, anyway? Can I get out of this meeting? Call in sick? Just quit suddenly and move to Barbados?
Mmm... Barbados. Reminds me of Barbasol. I'm gonna have to shave today. Gotta shave for those meetings, that's for sure. Can't be scruffy. Might be exhausted, but I can't look it. How long did I sleep, anyway?
Let's see... in bed at one, after looking for that stupid contact... that sucked. Never want to lose my contacts... lose contact... no... must gain contact... need human contact...
Hey. That's weird. Why is Lucy Liu walking into my bedroom? And whoa -- yeah, take it off, baby! Oh, yeah, slather on that tapioca pudding, girl! That looks tasty!
What? Do I want some of that? Well, you bet your sweet perky ass I do! Here I co --'
*BRRREEEH!* *BRRREEEH!* *BRRREEEH!* *BRRREEEH!* *BRRREEEH!* *BRRREEEH!*
'Damn. There's that fucking alarm. I officially hate my life. Bleh.'
And frankly, folks, that should have clued me in right there.I should have smashed the clock on the floor, Riverdanced on the damned thing for a while, pissed on the remnants, and crawled back into bed. Because it was all downhill from there.
I've taken up enough of your time already, so I'll just whiz past the milestones I saw today -- I paid three hundred dollars plus to get my dryer fixed, performed in a comedy show with an audience of two people (no shit, and here's the kicker -- the two were never in the room at the same time!), had my replacement contact pop out en route to the show and never go back in properly, meaning I had to drive one-eyed and half-blind for twenty miles each way, and then, to top it all off, decided to fight through the crowd situation (or lack thereof) at the show and deliver my jokes as best I could... and my videotape ran out mid-set.
There may be something there to salvage and show you tomorrow -- I'm not really sure. I'm too tired and too blind to check it out now. (Though I do want to give mad props to our lone audience member at the time, Eric, who held the camera for me; you're a good sport, Eric -- the best one-man audience a motley group of comics could hope for.)
Anyway, enough of this pissy nonsense. While I've been bitching and ranting, it actually has become tomorrow, so hopefully my luck's about to change. I'm off to bed now -- after backdating this post first, naturally -- and I'm sleeping as long as I goddamned please tomorrow, meetings and alarm clocks and tapioca-soaked Hollywood hellcats be damned. That oughta put me in better spirits. And I'll get a replacement lens and be good as new before you know it. But for now, I'm calling it a night. Febrary fourth was no friend to me; here's hoping my fifth -- and yours -- is one helluva lot better. Goodnight, and sleep tight, folks!
Yeah, that's most hated (the alarm thing). I often wake up before the alarm and can't get back to sleep. So I just lay there and check the clock every few minutes . . . until I doze off . . . two minutes before the alarm goes off.
Happens every time.
Really, I think there is a Rule in such cases, that you will grow incrementally MORE tired as you get closer to the time of your still-set alarm.
I feel ya, friend. No matter how long I'm lying there before the alarm goes off, I still hit the snooze bar when the damned thing first goes off to allow myself a little doze time. After I do that 3 or 14 times and finally get up, I am so disoriented, it's as if I was still drunk or stoned or some other thing I don't do any more.
I really need to get to bed earlier. And you really need to get yourself some bulk quantities of contact lenses and a hip new pair of (very inexpensive) glasses from Costco or BJ's. Just sayin'.
whoa... you have that dream about Lucy Liu and tapioca pudding too?!