Clareified

The one thing I miss about blogger is the handy little timestamp at the end of the posts. The one that would tell you that I am currently blogging this post at 4:48 a.m. It wouldn’t tell you that I was doing such from work. But I would get to that in the text of the post.
Why I am at work at 4:48 a.m. is an uninteresting story about time zones and international datelines, which I will not get into.
How I got to work at 4:48…49 a.m. is an uninteresting story that I will tell you.
I thought I was so clever. Clever clever Dawn.
I had to be at work by five a.m., but no way would I be able to go to sleep on time and wake up on time in the warm comforts of my bed and apartment of a million DVRs.
So, I concocted a plan.
“Hello?”
“Yes?”
“Mother, I need to stay at your apartment tonight because I need to go to sleep early and wake up at 3:45 a.m.”
“OK. No problem.”
Great. Done and done.
I would leave work early, go home, sup and go to my mother’s house to sleep in a monastic room of no television, no radio and be sure that my mother will wake me at 3:45.
I got to the ECB at 7:30. Bed by 9 was my motto.
I went to my room.
“Uhh…where’s my bed?”
I was fairly sure a bed was here just last week.
“I threw it out.”
And replaced it with a clothes dryer apparently.
“Uhh, remember when I called earlier and asked if I could sleep here? Yeah, I definitely imagined a bed would be involved.”
“Don’t worry, you can sleep in my bed. I usually sleep in the lounge chair anyway.”
Ok. Fine. I can’t think about this. I have a post to write and then bed by nine.
I finished writing my meandering epic of weekends gone by, and it was 9:10.
Ok, not nine, but close.
I went to go to bed.
My mother was watching “Justice.”
“Uh…I have to go to sleep now.”
“Just let me finish this.”
“Here…I’ll tell you what happens. They take his case, he gets acquitted. They show you how he didn’t do it.”
“I want to watch it.”
But…but…my MOTTO.
“Look since you’re here…”
Oh good gravy.
I spent the next hour printing documents about immigration for her friend’s daughter’s husband.
It was ten o’clock.
“Ok, let me watch the first part of the news….while you wait, can you finish those pension documents?”
Awesome.
Finally, finally at 10:30, the television was off and I was ready to sleep.
“How are you going to wake up?”
Uh…I dunno…I figured you would wake me up.
Evidently, no.
I got up to set the alarm.
“Make sure you change it back in the morning. I don’t want to wake up at 3:45 every day.”
Yes, mother.
I got back in bed.
“Can you turn on the fan for me?”
ARRRRGGGHHHH.
It was close to eleven.
I wasn’t tired and now I was worried about how little sleep I was getting.
What.was.I.thinking?
I tossed and turned for twenty minutes, before I decided to get up and make a reservation for a car in the morning.
I finally fell alseep at 11:35.
“Dawn! DAWN!”
I opened my eyes.
“It’s 3 o’clock.”
“Huh?”
I couldn’t place where I was.
“Dawn! Get up! It’s 3 o’clock!”
Ah…yes…my mother’s house. My genius plan. But why was I being awakened 45 minutes before I needed to be? Why?
“Oh, I thought you had to leave at 3:45?”
No. Dude.
“I set the alarm…remember…me getting up…walking over to the magic silver box and setting it…for 3:45.”
“Oh…what time are you leaving?”
4:15.
“Well, that’s not enough time. You have to eat breakfast and get ready. You have to dress nicely. You’re the only black one there. People are looking at you.”
She has a thing about people looking at the only black one.
I got up.
I trudged to the kitchen imagining the sweet sweet release of death.
“Don’t use the new bowls.”
“Are you making coffee or tea?”
“You should start running the shower, sometimes the water takes a while to heat up.”
Seriously. Kill me. Now.
Meanwhile, it seems the neighborhood watch association has put up these flourescent flood lights, so even at 3 a.m., the whole block is lit as if on the edge of sunrise.
My head was pounding and I buoyed my spirits with the prospect of sleeping in the car to work.
But no.
My driver was a Panamanian black dude who was all fascinated with my mom’s building.
“Is it clean?”
“Do they have one bedrooms?”
“I saw security cameras, is it safe?”
“How much is the rent?”
He was impervious to my “pretending to sleep” powers.
I took out the Treo and pretended to work.
“What’s that?”
“Is it also a phone?”
“You get good service?”
SHUT THE HELLLLL UPPPPP???
How are these people with the non stop question asking at FOUR IN THE MORNING???
HOW??????
What drug exactly are they on and why hasn’t it been outlawed.
I made it upstairs –alive, despite my driver taking the curves on the FDR at something approaching 70 miles per hour, and when he briefly lost control and my head went slamming against the windowpane, his response was “whoa. They need to fix these roads. They could kill somebody.”
Really? You promise?

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 at 5:59 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.