Night Shift, or Cooking With My Eyes Closed

It’s 3am, the bewitching hour , but I”m not feeling too much like Tabitha  at this moment.  Two weeks into this new shift from hell, and I”m hearing a little voice in my head saying ” You should have stayed in school Ruth” .  

30 years ago I would have loved this shift.  Staying up late , going for a snack in Chinatown , listening to bubbly chatter and laughter from  wabbling bar patrons as they stagger into the restaurant for a last attempt at keeping the night alive.  Ah to be young again, when you can stay up late, sleep all day , not a care in the world.

That little voice in my head just turned into a needle on the tonearm of a  turntable scratching its way across a nice new shiny vinyl record. “Ouch” That’ll put a hurt on your ears.

Back to reality here, It’s  3:30 am now, and there’s work to be done.  Lives to be saved.  Yes lives!  Apparently there is a new item added to the national emergency registry .  It’s called “losing connection to the internet .”   We are a society of  technology juiced up people , and when the internet goes down , or we can’t watch the boob tube , life as we know it comes crashing to a halt , like Halleys Comet , crashing down to earth.

Dial 611…because we are in such a hurry to be reconnected to the juice, that we can’t even punch in more than 3 numbers on a phone.  Ok enough with the lectures already.

The dreaded last-minute call .  It’s something we in the tech support industry ,  put out of our minds, just in case that somehow by thinking about it , will make it happen.  One minute to go , watching the clock like a hawk with his eyes on a rabbit , come on hurry up , I want out.  Bang… got the call. Taking a deep breath , just as my heart rate was slowing down , and getting ready for sleep mode.  I got the last-minute call. Here goes the roller coaster ride again, one more time around the park.  Heart rate up , increase the tempo on the old pulse conductor.  Let’s get this dance over I want to go to sleep.

Finally off  to bed.  The stillness of the  air at this time of night,  almost feels like being in a hyperbaric chamber.  Not that I have ever been in one.  Sleep comes easy at 4 am , when you have been up since 8.  You see, I”m a creature of routine, and magically wake up like fairies are singing in my ears or something every day at 8 am.  A good blast of fresh ground coffee , from my cherished Saeco Espresso machine, and I just might have a little life in me to open my eyes and go about my daily routine.  Sadly , this is not the case.  The caffeine is like water in the veins to a Zombie like me.  It’s going to be a long day.  More caffeine , ought to do the trick you would think.  A litre of coffee later, I”m still walking around feeling like I stayed up all night with a new-born baby , minus the breast-feeding part.  Ok so that should be easy , take a nap before work, and I’ll be set to go.  Well , if only life could be so simply planned out that way.  By the time I go for a nap, the original espresso I had gulped down  earlier,  kicks in and starts pushing its way through my weary veins, and I’m on the roller coaster again.  Oh what the heck , might as well skip the nap, didn’t really need the sleep  anyway.  Zombies dont’ sleep you know !

See you in the kitchen…….

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