This Thursday, like all Thursdays this semester, is Big Homework Day. I have two Chemistry labs due, I have to read several essays for a couple of different classes, and I have to do lots of reading and written exercises for Linguistics class. (The latter I don’t mind, as we’re doing morphology right now, which I find fascinating. But I digress.) I woke up today, bright and early at 10 in the morning, and mentally sketched out the following plan:
10 AM: Yawn, stretch, eat toast, watch a little TV.
10:30 AM: Type up lab reports.
12 PM: Take a nice little break, have some coffee, maybe switch to Linguistics.
2 PM: Go to class.
3:15 PM: Head to work early so I can sip some free coffee and finish my studying for the day.
6-10:30 PM: Sling assorted coffee drinks for money. Have a great time joking and laughing with TD, one of my favorite coworkers, who was scheduled to close with me tonight.
10:30 PM: Give TD a ride home, then jet my ass over to my friend’s house for some Orange Crunkstars*. I tells ya, he makes 'em like nobody else makes 'em, and they’ll kick yer ass like nobody’s business.
I quickly commenced with the yawning and the stretching; feeling somewhat accomplished, I decided to lie in my bed for a couple more minutes before I began the toast-eating and the TV-watching. To my surprise, though, I subconsciously 86ed the toast-and-sitcom plan and decided instead to return to REM sleep and have an inappropriate sex dream about one of my supervisors at work. (Or, more accurately, a sexual frustration dream. But it felt nice anyway–even though there was no sweaty lovin’, there was lots of naked huggin’ and cuddlin’ and that was good enough for me this morning.)
Startled back awake by nothing in particular at 1:20 PM, I realized that I had to revise my plan, and fast. New plan:
Right the Fuck Now: GTF out of bed, throw on some clothes, haul ass to campus; upon arrival on campus, acquire a Dr. Pepper and make haste classwards.
3:15 PM: Head into work early and do some homework.
6-10:30 PM: See above.
10:30 PM: Give TD a ride home; 86 the party and head home to type up the lab reports.
So I gunned it all the way to school, squeezed myself into a parking spot sandwiched between two cars riding the adjacent lines, used ninja skills and my +3 dexterity bonus to escape my vehicle, and endeavored to secure a bottle of Dr. Pepper for immediate consumption. I found one at the bookstore. Realizing I still had a couple of minutes before class, I sat down on the nearest bench and opened up my soda and my bag of chips, only to see the soda bottle unleash its furious carbonated anger upon me. Apparently I had shaken it somehow, and it was exacting its revenge by rendering my shirt unwearable. OK, no big deal–I’ll head back to my car and put on my work shirt, I thought. As I changed and cleaned up, it dawned on me that I was 15 minutes late to class. I decided to give up on that lecture and spare the class an interruption; I’d taken the class before so I wouldn’t have heard anything new anyway. I grabbed myself a bite to eat and headed to work to get some readin’ and sippin’ done.
At work, I shot the shit with the coworker I was relieving, and as I left the counter with my caffe latte she stopped me and said, “Oh, BTW, almost forgot to tell you–TD called out, so you’re closing by yourself tonight.” But one of our supervisors would help me out if I needed it–the one I’d had the sex dream about, as it turned out. OK, no big deal. So I sat down and commenced with the studying when another coworker, having just finished his shift, and waiting for his ride home, sat down at my table to chat with me. I obliged him and we ended up having a long and very interesting conversation about our past experiences with psychedelic drugs. Feeling a bit of a contact high, I sauntered behind the counter to check the schedule and see when I had a break, and that’s when I learned that I was not only closing by myself but starting work an hour early so that the girl currently on the clock could get home to her wife (OK, “life partner”). At this point my productivity plans had been so drastically cut up that I decided to just clock in even earlier and start washing some dishes so I could save some time on closing later.
The supervisor I’d been dreaming of came over to help me out at the cafe later, and I found out that she was engaged. Sigh.
Fast forward to 10:30 PM. The shop was closed and it was time to head home. I was too worn out from closing mostly by myself to start on the lab reports, so I figured I’d grab a burger and fries and kick it in front of the TV for a little while first. 1:30 came around and I drafted what I believed to be my final plan: I would head over to the Living Room, the local coffee chain that stayed open until 2 AM, and get a hot espresso drink to energize me for the lab reports, plus an iced espresso drink I could stick in the fridge and quaff later when the first wave of caffeine began to wear off. I decided to make both drinks orange mochas as I was feeling a bit of a sweet tooth. Since I have a reputation as a good tipper at that coffee shop, I managed to get a couple dollars off my drinks; tipping 40% to show my gratitude, I went off into the night. Two freeway exits later, I ran out of fuel, my engine turned off and I lost my power steering and ABS simultaneously, so I somehow managed to pull over to the shoulder of an offramp (screaming all the way, of course). I called AAA and a tow truck showed up 45 minutes later; the tow dude poured some gas in my tank and we fired 'er up again, and after a couple of tries my vehicle got its normal functions back, including both ABS and power steering. I was good to go, but burning my reserve tank, so I revised my plan yet again. New plan: Buy half a tank of gas and maybe a pack of cloves at the gas station by my place, head home, and finally begin working on my lab reports.
I finished off the hot orange mocha (remember that these are both very sugary drinks) and started formulating the introduction to my lab report in my head when a sharp turn came upon me; I took it with great agility and then felt something cold on my leg. I looked down and saw that the iced orange mocha had emptied itself all over the interior of my vehicle and my nice work pants, rendering both sticky, cold and nasty. OK, fine, thought I, I’ll ask the nice man at the gas station for a towel to wipe my seats down with, grab my gas and cigs and head home.
I arrived at the 24-hour gas station to find the doors locked and a sign taped on the outside saying “Doing ‘end of day’–open by 3:45 AM”. It was 3:15 AM. No cigs and no towel. I then tried to buy some gasoline at the outdoor kiosk thing and it spazzed out on me, refusing to sell me the gas. Sigh.
New plan: Head home, wipe down my seats, post the story to the SDMB, and retire to my quarters, defeated. Sorry, teach…I don’t have the lab reports for you; I’ve had a rough couple of days. I’ll have them next time.
- Vodka, orange juice and Rockstar energy drink.