overnight

The best part of being a supervisor? When someone calls in sick and neither of us can find a sub staff, I get the pleasure of unpaid overtime. It's my luck that my Labor Day was spent doing just that. 

I worked from two in the afternoon Monday until eight am Tuesday morning. And that's not counting my regular scheduled programming. It's not that big of a deal. It's not like I was doing anything important. Except that it was Labor Day and I was enjoying my day off with nonstop BBC on Netflix. 

It was an easy night. The only things I actually had to do was daily paperwork (easy), pass meds (easy), and cook lasagna (not so easy).  I lucked out on the cooking...there was plenty of leftovers and they all wanted that instead. They were even on their best behaviors for me (besides a few snarky comments about my running shorts and T-shirt).  Oh, they were even all in bed at 930. I couldn't have asked for a better unpaid shift on Labor Day. 

I did a little more paperwork and laid down on the couch to call asleep, too, but figured 'hey, it's Labor Day, why not watch one more episode of Sherlock and pretend I'm home.' So there I was, laying on the couch with my laptop burning on my chest, when her door opened. My little hypochondriac was awake. 

"I took my temperature and it's 99.3. I need soup and orange juice."

"99.3 is perfectly fine. What you need is sleep."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I know everything, remember?"

"Alright. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, girl."

My episode was just about over as I took my laptop to the kitchen to get my sleepy time glass of water. It was almost midnight. Definitely should have skipped Sherlock, but I'm a fan of delusion and I wanted to be home. I turned around to head back to the couch and there she was again. 

"I'm hungry." 

"Why are you still awake? You have school in the morning, young lady. And I have a meeting." 

"You know how I said I'd have one Dr. Pepper with dinner and that's it?"

"Oh, you sneaky..." The last time she had more than one pop that late, she was up until four am. 

"Yeah! So I can't sleep. What are you watching?" She is 20 years old and has the smile of a 14 year old girl who just learned how to sneak out of the house. 

"Sherlock."

"Like Sherlock Holmes? I love Sherlock Holmes."

And with that sentence, I waved a decent nights sleep goodbye. 

She only watched about an hour of it with me before she finally went to bed. I sent her off with the title of the 'movie' she had hopes of renting. 

It was after one in the morning when I finally got to close my eyes. I felt guilty giving her false hope. At first. When I opened my eyes twenty minutes later, my alarm was sounding. Did I even sleep? 

What an unfortunate way to start the day.  The day I have a meeting with the director of operations. The day I had my new dress packed, but not my concealer. 

She was all bubbles and sunshine when she awoke. She even helped with the other girls morning routines. She could not, however, help the circles under my eyes or the eight hours of meetings and appointments ahead of me. 

If my sleep schedule wasn't jacked enough already...

Goodnight moon.