A Long Day
THE day was busy, which was exactly what I needed. When we didn’t have a line of customers, I found something else to keep myself busy. In point of fact, I was so tired that I was afraid that if I stopped moving I would simply fall asleep where I stood. And that wouldn’t look so good if a customer came in while I stood there sleeping. Not to mention that sleeping while standing meant I was subject to tipping over.
When my shift ended, I stepped outside to find Bill and the car sitting in the parking lot, waiting for me. He took one look at me and got back into the car behind the wheel. I went over to the driver’s door and said, “Come on, Bill! I need to get to school.” I couldn’t understand why he had gotten out and then gotten right back in.
“Hop in,” he said, not budging from his spot behind the wheel.
Reluctantly, I got into the passenger seat, grumbling, “I don’t have time for this now.”
“There is no way I’m letting you drive, given how absolutely exhausted you look. I’ll drive you over and wait for you.”
“I have no idea how long this will take.”
“Then that’s how long I’ll wait—as long as it takes.”
“Bill!” I objected. “You need to be home resting! Not driving all over town.”
“You heard me,” he said as he drove us to the campus. When we got there, he parked and walked with me to the building where I had my meeting. I guess I must have really looked tired, because my professor took one look at me and said, “You look like crap!”
“Huh?” I said, losing my ability to make conversation.
“When did you sleep last?”
Bill had been listening in and couldn’t resist joining the conversation, “Thank you! He hasn’t slept in I don’t know how long. As soon as this meeting is over I’m taking him home and putting him to bed.”
“I don’t need everybody telling me when to sleep and when to wake up! I’ll sleep when I have time to sleep!” I yelled. Taking a deep breath to pull myself together, I said, “My apologies. It’s been a very long day.”
“Then let’s do this,” my professor said. “Show me how far you’ve gotten, and we’ll see what comes next.”
I pulled out my laptop, powered it on, and started to walk him through my code. I had large parts of the code in executable form so I was able to demonstrate how I envisioned the logic of joining different code blocks together in sequence.
“Nicely done!” he said. “You’re farther along than I would have expected.”
“I should be finished by now,” I complained. “I know what I want to do—I just need the time to do the coding.”
“That’s the story of my life,” he said. “Welcome to my world. Okay. I’ve seen enough. You’re farther along than I expected, as I said. And you’re farther along than most of the others that I’ve met with today. So, unless you have questions for me or sticking points you want to talk over, I think we’re done and you can go home and get some sleep.” He started to turn away and then said, “Are you working while going to school?”
“Of course,” I said. “We have to eat. We have to pay the rent. We have to put gas in the car.”
“I get the picture,” he said, holding up his hand to stop my litany. “Are you overextending yourself? How many hours a week do you work?”
“This week about forty hours.”
“So, you’re working basically two full-time jobs? Are you nuts?”
“It’s not what I would prefer,” I said, getting angry. “But I like to eat.”
Bill started to speak, “We can use—”
“No!” I shouted. “We are not using Isabella’s money! She left that to you to pay for your tuition! Not so we could buy cheeseburgers and T-shirts. And I can’t take any more money from my parents.”
“I don’t know what any of that meant, so I’ll leave that for you two to talk out. Consider taking a day off, if at all possible. You really look like you need it.”
“Fine,” I said. “See you in class tomorrow.”
Bill walked me back to the car and drove us home. Fortunately, he knew me well enough to know that he shouldn’t attempt conversation at the moment. I couldn’t admit this aloud, but the thought of going home, of being home, of maybe lying down for a while, was more appealing right about now than just about anything else in the world.
When we got home we moved inside. It was still too wet to be outside for long.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I called out from the bedroom. The water felt absolutely incredible. I seriously don’t know how mankind survived before showers were invented. Showers were about the only thing that separated us from the animals.
And then Bill was there shaking me. “Mark! Wake up!”
“What? I’m taking a shower!”
“Dude! You were asleep. You haven’t moved in twenty minutes.”
“No, I wasn’t!”
“Yes, you were. You’re totally exhausted.” He turned off the water and held the shower door open while he grabbed a towel. “Here, dry off,” he instructed, standing there to be sure I did as I had been told. When I was dry, he handed me some sweatpants and a T-shirt and guided me to the table, where he had food waiting. Maybe I had been asleep, because there was no way he could have done this much work in as short a time as it seemed.
Looking back now, I don’t know what it was I ate—it was food, which was good because I was hungry. Actually, I was beyond hungry, just like I was beyond tired. As soon as we finished eating, Bill guided me into the bedroom and pulled back the covers on the bed.
“Okay, time for bed. You are totally exhausted and you need sleep.” I guess he took my lack of argument as proof of his point. I remember undressing and lying down, but after that I didn’t know anything until the next morning.