Tuesday morning. Two flash reports are needed for a client meeting. The Gander is leaving at noon. I have no statements. The Gander is desperate. Amberance to the rescue! I make a few phone calls and get enough data to do a very reasonable approximation of the client's performance so far this year. I fly through it and quickly rig something up. I send it to the Gander at 11:30. He kisses my feet. Okay, really he just said "thank you", but I like to imagine this is more meaningful to him than it actually is. I begin to come down from the adrenaline rush you get from racing to beat a looming surprise deadline. And then...
The headache crashed into me with such force that I could have sworn someone had bashed my head in with a baseball bat.
I don't know what's with the headaches all of a sudden. I'm not one of those people with a perpetual headache. At least I wasn't before. My two best guesses are that my body is either having a violent reaction to the copious amounts of caffeine I've been consuming recently, or that it's a physical manifestation of the stress that is caused when one decides to uproot one's entire life and everything they know and start over from scratch. Catholic Dennis suggests it's carbon monoxide poisoning. I think this is silly (but asked him to pray for me just in case). However, I digress.
My head. Hurt. Like a mother fucker. I was writhing in agony. The pain was such that I was actually nauseous from it. I would have cried, but I was afraid it would hurt more if I did. I moaned piteously instead. Replacement was worried about me - she rushed off to the kitchen to get me some generic aspirin alternative and a glass of water. I ate the faux-aspirin. I might as well have eaten a couple of Tic Tacs for all the good it did me. It was lunchtime. "Go home," said Replacement. But I couldn't, I had a lot of crap to teach her that day. There was only one thing to do.
It was bliss, I tell you, absolute bliss. Every white collar stiff's fantasy come true. I pushed my chair up against the wall. I then took my guest chair and placed it right next to my own. Then I shut my door, turned off the lights, threw a sweater over top of me and TOOK A NAP AT WORK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY. A contented smile formed on my lips as I drifted into sweet, sweet sleep. In my office. During working hours. It was so George Costanza of me. A one-legged bum on the street outside my window played soft lullabyes to me on his out of tune saxophone as unconsciousness stole over me. I slept for an hour. Possibly the best nap of my life.
Of course, as soon as I sat up the raging headache overtook me once again and I was in agony until Sandi brought me some of the hard stuff she keeps in her desk (generic Aleeve). But I ran around the whole rest of the day telling everyone who crossed my path, "Guess what? I took a nap....at work!" Oh, the envy in their eyes. Phenomenal.
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