Tuesday, October 26, 2010

we didn't start the fire

I haven't slept well for the past 4 nights. Sometimes this happens to me. I'm not a great sleeper, but once in a while I literally CAN'T sleep at all. Eventually I get tired enough and it stops happening. Yesterday at work it was all I could do to stay awake and then run errands after work. By 9 pm I was practically passing out on top of my laptop at home. I went to bed, hoping to god that I could FINALLY get a good night of sleep. What happens? I am woken up at 1 am by the smell of smoke.

I immediately got out of bed and checked my apartment. (Highly unlikely - I barely use my stove and don't use my oven.. EVER). Then I opened a window to see if it was coming from outside. Nope. By this point, I had started to panic because house fires are pretty much my #1 fear. My brain started going through a mental list of what I would grab on my way out: Cat. Will I be able to stuff her in the carrier in time? Macbook. Because my whole life is on that thing. Purse. It has my cell phone and all of my vital information. Ironman finisher's medal. Because I am a freak. Bike. Might be too big. Ironman finisher's shirt. OK now you're just being ridiculous.

Before going into flight mode, I went down the back stairwell to see if I could locate the source of the smoke. The guys on the first floor were still up. I knocked on their door. Turns out, a towel caught on fire in their apartment. Don't ask me how. They opened the door and all 3 of them were hanging out, shirtless. It was 1 am. I don't ask questions. I do wonder why their smoke detector didn't go off. That scares me.

Sleeping was pretty much fruitless after that. I was wired. So here I am again, exhausted, only to come into work and find out that I have to work 12 hours today because our evening guy called in sick and I have to stay late to cover half of his shift. The bad news: I'm really, really tired and it's going to be busy. The good news: 4 hours of overtime is a lot of extra money. Hopefully this gets straightened out by tomorrow - either someone else takes over evenings for the rest of the week, or the evening guy calls in ahead of time so I can work 11-7 instead of 7-7.

As much as I dislike having to do overtime, I'm looking at it as a chance to put some extra money into my Ironman fund. This only happens once in a while, and at least I don't have any workouts to try to squeeze in. I can work, go home, watch NCIS, and go to bed. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.

4 comments:

  1. Wow...that's kind of scary about the fire. I don't think I could have gone back to sleep either!
    Working those long hours must be tough! I hope your shift goes by super quickly!

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  2. woah scary! who the heck do you live above?

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  3. hahaha boys w/ no shirts on - I imagine that's what goes on in the kaligula-esque apartment upstairs...quiet all day then about 11pm - 4am all sorts of craziness. Yikes! Good thing there wasn't an acutal fire!

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  4. That is pretty scary - glad it wasn't any worse though. I think I would've been of the same mindset about trying to save my bike and IM gear.

    Hope you finally get some sleep!

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