I was reading in bed the other night and I thought about how it used to seem so cool to try and stay awake for 24 hours. It still does seem kind of cool. It is sort of the exhaustion gold standard. I have only done it once, but time zones and adrenaline played a big part in that. Most of the time, it is sloppy and miserable. I have three stories about bad nights.
1) The night before I went to the temple in Ogden before my mission, I went out on a double date with a buddy. I was staying at a cousin's house and got home a little late. All the lights were off in the house and the front door was locked. I didn't want to wake anyone up, and there were no open windows or doors that I knew of. I figured it was pretty late already and I wouldn't have to sleep a really long time before someone woke up and opened the front door.
I reclined the driver's seat and closed my eyes assuming I could nap for 5-6 hours and wake up refreshed. About 45 minutes later I woke up shivering. I had fogged up all the windows and my shirt got twisted all around my neck. I turned on the car and drove a couple of miles with the heater on until the windows cleared and I felt warm again.
"I had better be sure and keep that window cracked" I thought to myself, "or else the windows will get fogged again." Five minutes later I closed the window because I was too cold. I slept for about an hour until my shivering woke me up and my leg and arm were numb. Those seats make awful beds. I got up drove around the block again, this time a little longer, exploring the train tracks and a scary factory. I drove back in front of the house and tried to sleep a little more. This went on all night. I woke up and drove around two more times before I woke up to my cousin looking in through the window and laughing. That was a horrible night.
2) In May, Anna and I went out to Virginia for her brother's wedding. We had a great time, but Soapy was still kind of small. Our last night in Virginia was hectic because we had to pack up all our stuff for our morning flight. Soapy was not happy and would not go to bed. She kept on crying and throwing her pacifier and talking. She was cranky because she hadn't taken any naps that day and it was just bad all around. We were in the same room or else we could have just ignored her and let her cry herself to sleep. I ended up taking her out of the crib and playing for a few minutes with her until she got cranky doing that to. I ended up laying on the couch with her on my chest in a bear hug so she wouldn't flail and fling herself off the edge of the sofa. I woke up about every 20 minutes through the whole night, but I slept a lot on the plane, so I guess it wasn't so bad.
3) The MONSTER story of all. I was awake for 52 hours once. That's really the only impressive part of the story. It was, again, right before I went to the MTC for my mission. I woke up at 8 and wasted my day, went on a date, went to work from midnight to 2 am, stayed up all night packing and watching Simpsons, went and did baptisms at 6 am (i figured since I was already up I might as well be productive), caugh the shuttle at 11, flew from Salt Lake to New York to Paris (watching movies the whole time of course), where I waited 9 hours for a delayed flight. I tried to take a nap but that airport is nasty and I couldn't go to sleep. I was on the floor and thought I heard someone tell some jokes, so I started laughing and realized that I was daydreaming and it was a flight announcement in French. That freaked me out. I went to the front desk and asked about the flight and the lady said that it is a good thing I did because I had 20 minutes before it left and if I didn't catch that flight I would have to wait 15 more hours for the next flight to Berlin. Apparently my parents called to find out my status and they assumed I would not have been able to catch a flight until that one 15 hours later, so when I did finally land in Tempelhof there was no one to come see me. Luckily I had some change in my pockets and I called home and asked Mom to come and get me. I was happy that the family felt bad that I was abandoned in the airport after 52 hours awake.
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5 comments:
hahaha i've always wanted to pull an all-nighter. haven't accomplished it yet though....
I have nothing cool to say about staying up late, but I read your post and I liked it. And, man , that first night in the car would be the worst.
P.S. When you're feeding a baby and typing one-handed sometimes you make stupid typos... like leaving a comma out in the middle of nowhere, for instance.
I remember having to come back to the airport to pick you up. I think I was just angry because you used up all your Greek Euros buying stupid stuff in the airport instead of putting them in the Euro collection thingy.
Haha! I remember that night you slept in the car. It was so sad and I think all the cousins felt so bad! You got so much pity. I tried to sleep in the back of that car once while camping. Very very uncomfortable.
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