Midnights

If I have gained one tidbit of knowledge about the midnight shift, it is that sleep deprivation messes with your perception of reality.



With that being said, I will go into a slightly embarrassing, but unfortunately true story of a misinterpretation of a news broadcast. With the excitement of the 2008 election i felt compelled to watch CNN at 8am after just working eight hours overnight. As a registered democrat I found interest in Barack Obama casting his vote while the peering eyes of the camera man were capturing his every move. Keeping in mind that I have been up now for almost an entire twenty four hour period I hear the news man say something about a new optical voting system. In the midst of this newscast I nod off for what could not have been more than a minute or two when the phones rings.

As I answer the phone, the previous notion of an optical vote somehow mutates into ocular voting and the skewed perception begins. With the confidence of an Italian supermodel, I provoke a conversation with my wife about the technological advances of 2008. Whilst in a state of comatose, I divulged my thoughts on the ability to gain a vote by somehow reading the retinas of a person, and this all made sense to me at the time. Without questioning me on this obviously fallacious invention, she did the most understanding thing and got me off the phone so i could resume my trance like state and eventual shut eye.

It is now 4pm and she is waiting for me to get out of bed so we can go and vote. A few minutes pass and I am scrambling around for my stuff so we can leave. In the car she brings up this heinous invention I so boldly spoke about earlier. As the story is retorted to me I can barely hold back the chuckles as I shrivel into my seat like a frightened turtle, or a male organ exposed to the chill of an unheated pool.

This all can be attributed to one thing, sleep deprivation. If anyone has ever worked from midnight til 8am, they can attest to the mind melting that occurs. Things are so distorted from lack of sleep that you start believe things that are obviously not there.

As there is no recourse for me at this point because I was so sure this was really going on, and Fabi got such a kick out of this. I have a suspicion that this story will be in the vault for the occasional reprisal for group humor.

To end this 4:54am rant of mental collapse, DON'T WORK MIDS'.......