The Results of Sleep Deprivation

Sunday night I went to bed at 2am because I was up late lesson planning, talking to my S.O., his brother, a friend of theirs (all different conversations), and a friend in Vietnam. This is important information for you to have because I had to get up at 6am Monday, which means I got 4 whole hours of sleep.

Anyway, I stumbled around the house doing useful things (I think I somehow even pretended to sweep and possibly mop the kitchen?--it's all sort of a blur now). I gathered up my messenger bag, ammo-bag purse, cell phone, tea mug, and lunch bag, slipped on my red heels, and headed for the kitchen door.

There is a large frosted window in this door through which you can peer down into the mudroom a few steps below. As I approached across the kitchen, I looked through this window and realized there was a puddle of pee on the mudroom floor. No, sorry, two puddles.

I opened the door and sighed. The cat was sitting on the windowsill directly to the right of the mudroom door leading outside.

"Really?" I said. "Really? You had to pee on the floor?" I then noticed a poop. "For reals?"

I walked down the steps and looked to the left, to the other side of the mudroom. The trashcan had been turned over and and contents dispersed over the floor, then surrounded neatly by several more urine deposits.

"The crap," I said to the cat. "What were you doing in here last night?"

I sighed. "Whatever," I said. "I can't deal with this right now; I've got to go."

I tipped precariously on heels under the weight of my burdens to the door and reached with my left hand to open it while at the same time I reached with my right hand (both hands still full of items) to give the cat an affectionate petting so she'd know I didn't hate her.

My hand was within an inch of the cat's face when some gear in my brain that had been rusted still with a lack of sleep suddenly ground its way free and I actually really saw the cat.

Guenevere our "cat"

Needless to say I said a bad word and jumped back on the steps to the kitchen door. The possum hunched down, but made no move to attack. I unloaded my burdens and took off my shoes (so I could escape quickly if our visitor decided he hated me). I then edged back to the door and opened it so the possum could escape. It was then that I remembered that possums are actually about as intelligent as a dirt-filled beer bottle; he refused to get down.

Freedom is clearly only a jump away. Instead I had to take five minutes and use a broom to try to push him off the ledge.

He only got more prickly about it, and determined not to move.

I finally got him dangling from that little bench, then dumped it over on him. He lay on his back for a moment before slowly rolling over and, purely by accident, ending up with his nose out of doors. As it was the way he was facing, he decided to move in that direction. He trundled slowly out onto the step and then into the grass. 

Once his feet touched grass, the three neurons in his brain fired and he realized he was free. He took off across the lawn towards the red barn. He had to swerve a few times, though, because a small rock in the yard looked temping as shelter.

Basically, possums are idiots, but definitely cuter up close than they are dead in the road. 

And also, for some reason, chocolate in the shape of body parts

Tonight at work a friendly co-worker called me over when she was putting bread in the oven.

"Hey Abby!" she said.

"What's up?" I asked, approaching.

"Some of us girls are going to go see a movie next week--want to join?"

"Ooh," I said. "Sounds cool--what movie?"

"Magic Mike," she said.

"What's that about?" I asked.

"Male strippers," she replied.

"Huh," I said. "How about you tell me when you guys go see a different movie, and I'd be totally game to hang out."

"Male strippers not really your thing?" she asked.

"Not so much," I said.

"Okay!" she said. We parted ways equably and went back to our respective jobs.

She's new; anybody else could've told her not to bother.

This is much more attractive, for one thing. 

Phone Adventures II and III

Thursday night I was chilling with my friend Christina at her house. We were drinking tea and talking Life.
Then we heard the sound of the Tardis materializing in the room. I checked, and I'd gotten a text from a random number: "Nice c-n u hope u home safe. Nite."

Not knowing who this person was, but willing to have some fun, I texted the person back with a greeting and said "How drunk are you?"

"Jimmy!!" the number replied.  "does it matter?" (all typing left intact)
Then, "4get-it wild 1"

I said something about knowing they were drunk from the lack of English typing skills and Jimmy laughed.

"Lol," he said. "mis-d that class"

I offered that maybe he should stop drinking while he was ahead. This seemed to cheese him off.

"I stop all the other shit that made me money after my son. Aint stop-n anyting.!"

I realized this was getting personal too quickly, so I told him I was proud that he'd stopped that other shit for the sake of his son--that was a really great thing. Also, I was not the person he thought he was texting; "my name is Joe," I said. This name was supplied by Christina, who was in hysterics over the whole affair, and agreed we oughtn't to use real names.

"Haha sorry joe" our new friend, Jimmy, replied.

I then said something about it being no problem--I've gotten random texts from wrong numbers before, and I just think it's amusing.

"FknLOL" Jimmy agreed.

I couldn't let this go and replied in good humour with "ChknYEA" to encourage him.

Jimmy then called and left me a semi-incoherent and very alcohol-laden voicemail explaining that he didn't know what my text response had meant, but I should call him whenever I had the chance (somehow I guess my voicemail answering thingy hadn't alerted him to the fact that I was not in fact the Joe he thought he was talking to).

I then sent him a text, explaining what had happened and that I do not actually know any Jimmies, and then, for good measure, "Jesus saves." Because, as Christina said, "why not?"
Jimmy pondered this for a few moments before responding.

"K," he said. "its all good. Nite."

I thought that was the end of my weird phone adventures, but it was not.

An hour or so later Christina and I went to bed. At 3:15am my phone rang. I usually think that if someone is calling me at 3:15 in the morning, it's either going to be a really weird phone call, or an emergency phone call. Both are worth answering.
I picked up the phone. "'lo?" I said.

"Hey," said the young male voice on the other end of the line. "Do you have Tabasco?"

"No. No, I do not in fact have any Tobasco. I think you've got the wrong number."

A pause. "No. I definitely don't have the wrong number. Who are you?"

"Abby," I said, forgetting that we weren't using real names.

"Abby...?" he pushed for further information.

"Maarsch," I said, regretting it as soon as it came out.

"Don't we go to school together?" he asked.

"I don't think so," I said. He then told me his name was Dunlan or Dolan or Dexter or something like that.

The next morning I couldn't remember the name he'd told me, and all that came to mind was "Dolan." Sad day.

"Nope," I said.

He then somehow pulled me into a two minute conversation about schools in the area and whether I'd been to SRU and when I told him I graduated from Grove City he said "Ooh. Grove City sucks."

I didn't really respond with more than a grunt of acknowledgement that he had said something, and he seemed disappointed.

"Okay," I said at last. "Well, it's late, and I'm really tired, so I'm going back to bed."

"Goodnight!" he said, and hung up.

I'm thinking it was probably a friend of Jimmy's, intent on revenge or a good time. It seemed as if everything he was saying was intended to elicit some sort of reaction from me, and I wasn't giving him any of the reactions he was expecting. Luckily this seemed only to amuse him, not anger him.

And thus ends another tale of me and my cell phone.