#147:

If
for instance
I'd slept all the way through each night for the last
three nights
instead of waking up every hour, on the hour,
cold
sad
sleepy
and just crazy about camp
I might have woken up at 4:50 instead of 5 this morning and I would have had the moral fortitude to drag my sad carcass out of the shrieking mattress on the top bunk of the rolling camp beds at 5:15 instead of 5:23
and
instead of driving down Hwy 101 in the cool dawn of fast approaching 6 a.m. to hit Astoria at 6:30, I would have been there at 6
which means
I could have taken a shower at 6:35 instead of 6:46 and I would have gotten to work at 7:04 instead of 7:23 and I would have had 19 whole extra minutes to review my notes from yesterday's reporting and
(a truly pivotal "and")
I would not have made the mistake I made in this story:
which is about the South CLATSOP Slough. Not the South COUNTY Slough.
This compounds itself with a day in which I have never felt so beat up in recent memory
It's like God pointed at my emotional stability and told all the saints of heaven to play rugby with it
Then He saw that I was feeling way too healthy and hike-erly, so He smote me with mysterious sickness in the middle of a three-story day juggling competition
I wanted to go to FC after work and bask in fellowship and love and possibly back rubs from my Mumsy
But no.
FEMA. Oh FEMA.
FEMA decided to have a meeting
at 5
If they'd had it at 1 instead of 5
If my hair had had time to dry before work
If my shower, if my trip, if my eyes had opened
and if all of this had existed within a special, extra two-hour slot of time
this day would have been much better

I'm a rattlesnake, babe. I'm like fuel on the fire.