Labor Day
I took a day off yesterday.
I used to not take them off, it seemed pointless when we lived in tents, no one wanted to be stuck on a wet cot in a leaky tent for a whole day. But the endless hours of work start to grind, and you start to resent giving back what few benefits we get with this job.
I long ago lost my ability to tell what day it is. I only now know when it is Saturday because no one emails me from home on the weekends. Yeah, Saturday and Sunday are the black hole of my life. Nothing. No communications. Everyone "back there" is resting, fixing the house, doing whatever the hell they do on weekends. Me? I haven't had a weekend in forever.
So yesterday I awakened at 4AM, determined to enjoy my day of privacy and leisure. I laid in bed, trying desperately to return to sleep. It is always a fantasy to be able to take the day off, and to sleep all day. We all talk about it. Yet it never happens. A fork lift drove by at 7AM with a pallet of Mozn, followed by the dual Blackhawk milkrun to the IZ flying directly overhead, vibrating my bed more than any 25 cents could ever do. As if that wasn't enough, then a car bomb shook the trailer. Pointless. But I wasn't going down without a fight. I swallowed some more benadryl, put in my ear plugs, and covered my head only to be annoyed by the death throes of the camp generator: a low frequency vibration shaking my bed in a rhythm that became more intrusive the more I tried to ignore it.
I finally got up and fixed some coffee. Irish cream or some such thing, suitably sweet and loaded with more caffeine than a body should have. By the second cup on my glorious, relaxing day off I was shaking slightly and pacing all five square feet of floor space in my hooch. Took hours to calm down, reading the juicy details of a murder trial, writing, embroidering. I finally gave up and cleaned the bathroom. It wasn't dirty.
For lunch I treated myself to a can of tuna and some stale tortilla chips, anything to not have to leave the sanctity of the hooch and report to the DFAC on my day off. The empty tuna can smelled so bad after it sat in the heat of the garbage sack in the hallway that I had to dress and take it outside, then shower to clean myself of the God-awful, is-that-really-what-it-smells-like-down-there odor.
I got bored, and decided to check email, only to be electronically harassed by my boss for checking email on my day off. By the afternoon, I had run out of things to do and had purchased $5000 worth of furniture online for my bedroom back home that I can barely remember and probably won't see for months.
I decided I could no longer afford to take days off.
I used to not take them off, it seemed pointless when we lived in tents, no one wanted to be stuck on a wet cot in a leaky tent for a whole day. But the endless hours of work start to grind, and you start to resent giving back what few benefits we get with this job.
I long ago lost my ability to tell what day it is. I only now know when it is Saturday because no one emails me from home on the weekends. Yeah, Saturday and Sunday are the black hole of my life. Nothing. No communications. Everyone "back there" is resting, fixing the house, doing whatever the hell they do on weekends. Me? I haven't had a weekend in forever.
So yesterday I awakened at 4AM, determined to enjoy my day of privacy and leisure. I laid in bed, trying desperately to return to sleep. It is always a fantasy to be able to take the day off, and to sleep all day. We all talk about it. Yet it never happens. A fork lift drove by at 7AM with a pallet of Mozn, followed by the dual Blackhawk milkrun to the IZ flying directly overhead, vibrating my bed more than any 25 cents could ever do. As if that wasn't enough, then a car bomb shook the trailer. Pointless. But I wasn't going down without a fight. I swallowed some more benadryl, put in my ear plugs, and covered my head only to be annoyed by the death throes of the camp generator: a low frequency vibration shaking my bed in a rhythm that became more intrusive the more I tried to ignore it.
I finally got up and fixed some coffee. Irish cream or some such thing, suitably sweet and loaded with more caffeine than a body should have. By the second cup on my glorious, relaxing day off I was shaking slightly and pacing all five square feet of floor space in my hooch. Took hours to calm down, reading the juicy details of a murder trial, writing, embroidering. I finally gave up and cleaned the bathroom. It wasn't dirty.
For lunch I treated myself to a can of tuna and some stale tortilla chips, anything to not have to leave the sanctity of the hooch and report to the DFAC on my day off. The empty tuna can smelled so bad after it sat in the heat of the garbage sack in the hallway that I had to dress and take it outside, then shower to clean myself of the God-awful, is-that-really-what-it-smells-like-down-there odor.
I got bored, and decided to check email, only to be electronically harassed by my boss for checking email on my day off. By the afternoon, I had run out of things to do and had purchased $5000 worth of furniture online for my bedroom back home that I can barely remember and probably won't see for months.
I decided I could no longer afford to take days off.
posted by akantha at 1:17 PM
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