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One Mucked-Up Morning

I had a rough morning today.

I thought — as evidenced by my earlier post that the furnace fiddlers were coming by today to replace the heater in our house. The missus told me a few days ago that they’d be here on Friday, and that they’d show up at 8:30. In the morning.

Of course, what I neglected to remember was that they’re scheduled to arrive next Friday at the asscrack of dawn. Not this Friday. Hence the rough morning.

“I couldn’t have been moved with a cattle prod and a caffeine IV drip.”

Normally, I work my way into the day fairly leisurely. Wriggle out of bed, crawl to the bathroom. Mosey to the computer to check email. Basically, kill as much time as possible before I have to put on pants and face the daily grind of office life.

Today, though, there was no slouching around in my boxer shorts. I leapt out of bed — literally leapt, like some maniacally-medicated Baryshnikov — and hustled to the shower. That was eight AM. Four minutes later — in case the contractors showed up early — I was squeaky clean, dripping wet, and towelling down as fast as my sleepy fingers could rub. I nearly lost an eye.

All that, to be clothed and presentable by a quarter after eight, and for what? Nothing. Ten hours later, I find out I had the wrong week, but when I finally left the house at ten thirty this morning, I was cursing the furnace-installing industry like a rum-swilling sea dog.

(Of course, once it was clearly my fault, then it became ‘a perfectly understandable mistake’. History is dictated by those who write it down first, and I’m the douchebag with the keyboard. Get used to it.)

It’s amazing how a break from the normal morning routine can affect your whole day, though. I sailed through the day at work, no more or less idiotic or addled than usual. Until four in the afternoon.

At four, I hit what runners call ‘the wall’. I call it ‘Peanut Butter Snoozy Time’.

(No, peanut butter’s got nothing to do with it. Either you get it, or you don’t. Move along; there’s nothing else to see here.)

I went from wide awake and marginally productive to face down and drooling on my keyboard in three seconds flat. And no conceivable stimulus — no legal stimulus, anyway — could pull me from my near-slumber back into the workday. I couldn’t have been moved with a cattle prod and a caffeine IV drip. I was gone. Drained. Zonked.

And I blame my early-morning muddleheadedness for every bit of it. If only I’d had my customary time to slouch in my underpants, staring slack-jawed at my email login screen for an hour or so this morning, I’d have been right as rain all day. As it was, the fisheyed gaping hit me right in the middle of the afternoon. Not nearly as convenient, especially seeing as how I was in the middle of a planning meeting.

Boss: So Charlie, what do you think of all this?

Me: …

Boss: Charlie?

Me: …

Boss: CHARLIE!!

Me: Mrf. Uh-wha?

Boss: The project plan. You on board with this?

Me: Uhhhh… sure. It sounds great.

Boss: Really?

Me: Absolutely. Great plan.

Boss: Mmm-hmm. You sure about that?

Me: I couldn’t be more excited about it.

Boss: Because we just voted to make you wear lederhosen for the duration of the project.

Me: Um…

Boss: And you have to give all the status reports.

Me: Uh…

Boss: For the whole team.

Me: Er…

Boss: In a high falsetto voice. To the tune of ‘On Top of Old Smoky’.

Me: I see. I guess I zoned out for quite a while, huh?

Boss: Just long enough. Any longer, and we’d have thrown in a striptease. You’re lucky.

Me: I’d say we’re all lucky, sir. I doubt they make nipple tassels that would match lederhosen. Not this side of Dusseldorf, anyway.

I suppose that’s what I get for spacing on the furnace date, and losing a whole morning for no good reason. Or for not listening closely enough when my wife is talking. I’m sure there’s a ‘life lesson’ in all of this somewhere, but I’m too damned tired now to decipher what it is. I’ll just go to bed, and figure it out in the morning. Right before I sign up for those alto signing lessons. This is going to be one bitch of a project.