Sunday Turned Out To Be A Lousy Day On My End

So you may have noticed that I hardly wrote much of anything on this blog on either Monday or Tuesday.

Of course, I found out late on Saturday night that a close friend of mine had died. That made me feel terrible for the entire overnight shift. It drained and depressed me.

Yet, that was not all that was going on.

Turns out that Sunday was a miserable day for me for other reasons, as well. I work two jobs, and had to work both jobs on that day. That's tiring enough, frankly. But on Sunday during the overnight shift into the morning, I stayed for someone who was running late, and it wound up being 40 minutes. 

That left me with time to grab a coffee and then get to my other job. But as I was pulling into my weekend job, I realized (too late) that I had forgotten my lunch at the other job. It was too late to turn around and get it. Besides, all I have to do is get to 3 PM, and then go get it then, right? Maybe I'll be hungry, but then I'll eat once I get out. Plus, I had the rest of Sunday off, so I figured it would be a good chance to relax and unwind.

As it turns out, nobody showed up at the time when my shift normally ended. That meant that I had to stay until someone came.

It was an inconvenience at first. But then the hours went by, and I started to feel exhausted and hungry, even getting a hunger headache. 

Should I order some food? Maybe ask my supervisor if I can take fifteen or so minutes to just go to my other job and pick up the food that I left there? 

The hours just kept going on. I have my doubts that anyone was even scheduled to begin with. But he kept telling me that someone was on the way. He just needed to take care of personal business first, and then he would be on his way. That made it sound like it might just take a few minutes, that the guy might be on his way at any time. Maybe I'd be leaving within 20 or 30 minutes. So no, I didn't order food or go back to the other job.

Yet, nobody showed up, either.

After a while, it started to get dark. I got whatever snacks I could, including some popcorn in one of my bags which had likely been there for a long time. No idea if it was expired or not. But I just wanted something hot to eat, and this was about all that was available.

Long story short, I worked until 9:40 at night. Normally I get out at 3 pm, so that was over 6 1/2 hours worked, plus the forty minutes at the other job. That means that on Sunday, I worked literally more than 21 hours. Plus, I had been working since 10 pm the previous night, with only twenty minutes off between shifts. So it was almost like working 24 hours straight.

I tried to remember if I had ever done that before. Maybe. It's possible that I did during a massive snowstorm, or some such thing. But the fact that I couldn't remember it meant that it would have been many years ago, when I was a lot younger.

Also, that it happened unexpectedly on this of all days, when I was feeling down and depressed because my friend died....well, it was just an annoying day, you know? 

The death of my friend was another reminder of the shortness and fragility of life. But another reminder that I am getting older came later, when it took me most of Monday to really recover from the toll of working all of those extra hours at both jobs this weekend. The headache which I got seems to be coming back each day since, at least as I write this (early on Wednesday morning).

Anyway, I just wanted to explain the relative silence from my end over the past few days.