Good Morning
When you work nights, as I do, you rarely start the day the way "normal" people do. The world barges in on you, expecting you to be vertical between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The phone rings, delivery people beat on the door, city crews chew up the street with jackhammers, all during my hours that correspond to your midnight to 6 a.m. And I don't even have the option of getting indignant about it. Of course they don't know I'm asleep.
But I hate it when I set myself up for it. Like I did earlier this week. We're finally getting a couple of old chairs re-upholstered. The people from Stumpf's Upholstery called, and I told them to come over Tuesday at 2 p.m. and I'd have the chairs ready to go.
And I plum forgot it. Probably because I made that scheduling arrangement during a phone call that had woken me up, and after which I went right back to sleep. On my schedule, it's really hard to know what you dreamed and what you really did.
So a pounding door-knocker jolts me from a sound sleep Tuesday afternoon. I grab my bathrobe (hung with the open side out so I can do the fireman's drill at moments like this), and on the way down the stairs I remember who it is. I must have looked quite the eccentric, answering the door unshaven, bed-headed, bathrobed, and blinking at the daylight, at 2 p.m.
Two guys came over to get the chairs. But one of them had had an operation and wasn't allowed to lift anything. I see private enterprise is picking up tricks from the post office.
The one chair we're getting done has been up in the attic since I moved in. The attic stairs have odd, tight twists at the top and bottom. The chair is big and old. There's only one way to torque it through the turns, and I barely remembered the dynamics, but I took the low man position and somehow the guy with the functioning back and I got it down and out to the truck. I waved them off and closed the door and dusted the shreds of old fabric and stuffing off my robe.
The day had begun. From asleep and dreaming to moving furniture in less than 60 seconds.
But I hate it when I set myself up for it. Like I did earlier this week. We're finally getting a couple of old chairs re-upholstered. The people from Stumpf's Upholstery called, and I told them to come over Tuesday at 2 p.m. and I'd have the chairs ready to go.
And I plum forgot it. Probably because I made that scheduling arrangement during a phone call that had woken me up, and after which I went right back to sleep. On my schedule, it's really hard to know what you dreamed and what you really did.
So a pounding door-knocker jolts me from a sound sleep Tuesday afternoon. I grab my bathrobe (hung with the open side out so I can do the fireman's drill at moments like this), and on the way down the stairs I remember who it is. I must have looked quite the eccentric, answering the door unshaven, bed-headed, bathrobed, and blinking at the daylight, at 2 p.m.
Two guys came over to get the chairs. But one of them had had an operation and wasn't allowed to lift anything. I see private enterprise is picking up tricks from the post office.
The one chair we're getting done has been up in the attic since I moved in. The attic stairs have odd, tight twists at the top and bottom. The chair is big and old. There's only one way to torque it through the turns, and I barely remembered the dynamics, but I took the low man position and somehow the guy with the functioning back and I got it down and out to the truck. I waved them off and closed the door and dusted the shreds of old fabric and stuffing off my robe.
The day had begun. From asleep and dreaming to moving furniture in less than 60 seconds.
