Ring! Ring! *%$#@$@#@!!!!!!
Few things generate cold-sweat terror like a telephone call in the dead of night.
All is peaceful, and then BAM! The heart races. The mind struggles to gain consciousness. The sweat pours forth.
It's 3 a.m., so what's the deal? Who is it? Why are they calling? What horrible news am I about to hear?
Sleep-destroying night calls were common at our old house in Beaumont, thanks to our number being one digit off from someone who apparently stayed up all night.
It had never happened at our new home out in the country - until last night.
Ever since Hurricane Ike, I've spent every weekend, from dawn til dusk, sawing, hauling and burning debris around in my yard. Staying up past 9 p.m. on those grueling days has been almost impossible. Many times, I've fallen asleep on the couch, only to wake up at 2 a.m. with my dried-out contact lenses glued to my eyeballs.
Last night, I decided to avoid that by turning in early after perhaps the most physically demanding day yet in the post-Ike cleanup. While I was in very deep sleep for what seemed like hours, the telephone rang, jolting me awake.
It's 3 a.m., so what's the deal? Who is it? Why are they calling? What horrible news am I about to hear?
With my pulse pounding, I grabbed the phone, and what might go down as the most bizarre thing I've ever done, I inexplicably launched an assault on the caller.
WHO THE %^%$#@!!! IS THIS?!?!?! WHAT THE %^%$#@!!! IS GOING ON?!?!?!
A soft, rather timid voice responded. It was my wife, who informed me that she was on the phone with the administrator of my son's preschool. She had called about my wife's availability for substitute teaching.
And it was only 9 p.m.
DOH!
Somehow, in the span of about 10 minutes, I had fallen into hard sleep, so hard that I thought it was in the wee hours of the morning when the phone rang.
I got off the phone and fell quickly back to sleep, but I awoke this morning with my heart racing, remembering the call and wondering why the heck that I had responded that way. The wife was furious with me and thought I was policing her phone calls, that I didn't trust her or something.
After bountiful apologies to the wife, I drove by the preschool on the way to work and apologized to the administrator like I'd never apologized to anyone before and tried to explain myself, which was hard to do. The apology was accepted, thank goodness, but I'm still trying to understand what happened.
I'll probably never figure it out, but one thing is for certain: I'm going to dial it back a notch when it comes to exerting myself in the yard from now on.
All is peaceful, and then BAM! The heart races. The mind struggles to gain consciousness. The sweat pours forth.
It's 3 a.m., so what's the deal? Who is it? Why are they calling? What horrible news am I about to hear?
Sleep-destroying night calls were common at our old house in Beaumont, thanks to our number being one digit off from someone who apparently stayed up all night.
It had never happened at our new home out in the country - until last night.
Ever since Hurricane Ike, I've spent every weekend, from dawn til dusk, sawing, hauling and burning debris around in my yard. Staying up past 9 p.m. on those grueling days has been almost impossible. Many times, I've fallen asleep on the couch, only to wake up at 2 a.m. with my dried-out contact lenses glued to my eyeballs.
Last night, I decided to avoid that by turning in early after perhaps the most physically demanding day yet in the post-Ike cleanup. While I was in very deep sleep for what seemed like hours, the telephone rang, jolting me awake.
It's 3 a.m., so what's the deal? Who is it? Why are they calling? What horrible news am I about to hear?
With my pulse pounding, I grabbed the phone, and what might go down as the most bizarre thing I've ever done, I inexplicably launched an assault on the caller.
WHO THE %^%$#@!!! IS THIS?!?!?! WHAT THE %^%$#@!!! IS GOING ON?!?!?!
A soft, rather timid voice responded. It was my wife, who informed me that she was on the phone with the administrator of my son's preschool. She had called about my wife's availability for substitute teaching.
And it was only 9 p.m.
DOH!
Somehow, in the span of about 10 minutes, I had fallen into hard sleep, so hard that I thought it was in the wee hours of the morning when the phone rang.
I got off the phone and fell quickly back to sleep, but I awoke this morning with my heart racing, remembering the call and wondering why the heck that I had responded that way. The wife was furious with me and thought I was policing her phone calls, that I didn't trust her or something.
After bountiful apologies to the wife, I drove by the preschool on the way to work and apologized to the administrator like I'd never apologized to anyone before and tried to explain myself, which was hard to do. The apology was accepted, thank goodness, but I'm still trying to understand what happened.
I'll probably never figure it out, but one thing is for certain: I'm going to dial it back a notch when it comes to exerting myself in the yard from now on.
posted by Brian Pearson at 1:26 PM
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