I'll rise.... but I won't shine.

My eyes shot open, my whole body in a sheer panic, my mind racing. The time was 3:30AM. I would have sworn to you on my favorite pair of stiletto heels that the light I was seeing were the rays emitting from a sun that was well on its way to its zenith, and not from the monitor of my laptop that I had left open in the empty space next to me on my bed, which was, in fact, what it actually was. Let me tell you, I am not exactly the most aware or alert person when abruptly awoken in the middle of the night. Disorientation is pretty much my only brain function. I had a breakfast event to attend that my company was sponsoring, which required my presence at the venue at the bright and early hour of 6 AM. The thought that the day was quickly approaching the noon hour was enough to nearly send my heart into cardiac arrest. Which would have been bad, considering that I live alone and don't exactly keep a defibrillator next to my bed in the event that I would have to shock my heart into cooperation. I immediately saw my job flashing before my eyes and wondered what words my manager would use as he fired my sorry butt for oversleeping and missing the whole thing.

Mind you, all this occurred in the span of about 5.4 seconds. At 5.5 seconds, I understood what was actually transpiring, and calmed down. Then 5.6 seconds arrived, and I had a horrifying thought.... "Sweet potatoes!!! I forgot to tell the organizers that I need electricity for our exhibit table!!!" This time, the panic was well justified, considering the fact that we are indeed a technology corporation. Technology requires power. To my knowledge, the tech heads around the world have not yet discovered wireless energy pathways. Hence, no power would lead to the aforementioned firing of yours truly for royally screwing up. Second 5.8 went something like this: "Holy matrimony!! I forgot the extension cord! And I don't know if anyone packed up the surge protector!" This was not going so well. 5.9: "And they didn't say anything about tablecloths! WHAT IF WE DON'T HAVE A TABLECLOTH?!" The thought of whatever epiphanies were going to materialize at Second 5.10 were terrifying.

In my defense, I had organized our participation in the breakfast event in precisely a day and a half. Considering all of the coordination that involves (demo kits in house that need all the various parts assembled by our techies; demo kits that we really need but haven't out shipped yet from the manufacturer and therefore require frenzied phone calls to our sales rep only to find out that his kit, which would normally be borrowable, already has claim laid on it for the day that we need it; sales literature that we don't have yet that no one at the manufacturer's corporate office will return my phone calls about; PowerPoint presentations that need revising; along other general organizational nightmares, not the least of which included the market account manager handling the exhibit table with me has never actually touched the demo equipment that we were using), only forgetting about a few major items on the docket really isn't so bad. All this coordinating obviously came on top of the other 15 projects that currently occupy the top of my list.

Praise be to good old goodness gracious, Second 5.10 passed without any other revelations to send me into a tizzy. Second 1800.2, or approximately 4AM, found me rummaging through boxes however, on the hunt for extension cords and surge protectors. Thankfully, I was able to locate both. I crawled back into bed, only to lie there, picturing myself climbing up poles to tap into the city power supply if necessary to get those demo kits rolling. Which, really, is a very entertaining mental picture to anyone that knows me. I don't do the technical side of things. I mean.... I really don't do them.

In case you don't already know, I don't wear early morning well. When I finally drug my exhausted rag of a body out of bed and looked in the bathroom mirror (somewhere in the ballpark of Second 5400.7) earlier than necessary really just to stop mentally seeing myself accidentally sticking a live powerline up my nose or something while trying to power the CCTV system... shudder. I didn't know that it was possible for my hair to stick up in that many different directions at once. I mean, some serious static ball action going on here. Both eyesockets looked like a boxer had used them in a workout, not to mention that my restless night had left its mark on my left cheek in the form of pillowcase creases. Sigh. This day was not going well. And the sun hadn't even given a thought of making an appearance yet.

However, after I got rid of the bags under my eyes and scary hair, I arrived at the venue to discover that not only did we have electricity, but a tablecloth as well. It may have been that awful evergreen color that hotels love to use for some reason completely unbeknownst to me, but heck, I didn't care. It was better than having to disrobe and use my pants and suit jacket on the table instead. Things were brightening up considerably. Also, the crickets stopped chirping by now (I hate crickets) and my eyeballs no longer felt like they had beach sand in them. The event went off without a hitch (okay, well, almost. The PowerPoint presentation did keep hiccuping, but I gave it a stern talking to and straightened it out. I'm vicious like that). The rest of the seconds of my day proceeded in sheer insanity, as usual. Ah yes, the joys of Corporate! Always insanity! Sheer insanity! TGIAF....