Rough turkey day

Well, work was work yesterday, except far few others on station were doing so as well. I finally got to quit around 6:00 p.m., changed clothes, and joined the growing crowd of folks for my third seating of Thanksgiving dinner in the hallway for hors d'oeuvres. The fresh veggies tasted great, but the baked brie stole the show. When we went into the galley for the meal the windows were all blocked out, so it was actually dark in there. Christmas lights had been hung overhead, and all the tables had been rearranged. The food was great, and I barely had room enough left for a piece of pumpkin pie when it was all said and done with. Most people were dressed very nicely, especially the ladies. I just wore an old turtleneck of mine, but got a few compliments on how I looked in something other than Carhartt overalls. One person said I looked like Spock, but his girlfriend nearly bit his head off when she heard that.

A dance party tried to get started in the galley after the meal, but the stereo kept having technical difficulties, so many left to cut a rug out at the Summer Camp Lounge. I'd only gotten 2 hours of sleep the night before, so was feeling pretty knackered. This didn't do very good things for my social demeanor, which (as it has been since way back when I started going to dances/parties in middle school) usually involves me standing on the sidelines of the party or in some dark corner just watching others doing all that party stuff. I finally called it quits and walked back to the station. I started putting the dining room back together and cleaning it up, and got help from a few other folks.

After that I hit the sack, but it was only for an hour as the fire alarm went off, and I had to get out to my locker and start donning my bunker gear and SCBA. Given how tired and disoriented I was, it's amazing how quickly the gear was out of the locker and onto my body. We got a call that it was a false alarm, and then had several other false alarms as the tech reset the inadvertently engaged system out at Summer Camp. So, with all that adrenaline coursing through my system it took another two hours to get to sleep after the hour spent getting into my gear over and over again.

Consequentially, this morning (as I've started yet another full day at work whilst others slumber peacefully in their beds) I'm again pretty much limping into the knackers' yard. Who needs controlled substances to wake up feeling like a truck has run you over when sleep deprivation is so much more cost effective?