Ode to a Friday morning lost...

I have gotten to the point in the deployment where I attempt to slide silly words into briefings I give to important people. Today I told a general about the shenanigans that go on in my area of operations. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Friday is the day that I sleep in--theoretically, at least. It didn't happen today as there seemed to be two different things conspiring against me.

Thing the First: There are some visitors in my B-Hut (the plywood structure that houses me and 15 of my closest friends). These visitors are in transit, so they were just hanging around at 8 AM, a time that I have blocked off on the my calendar for unconsciousness. The visitors, though, didn't think that turning lights on and off, slamming doors and having conversations using their outdoor voices was incompatible with my happy-action-sleep time. And unfortunately for all of us, they thought wrong.

Thing the Second: At about 930 when the visitors finally took off, someone started banging on my door. I ignored it at first, but they were persistent. I groggily shouted something or other and the knocker answered back--it was a friend/co-worker letting me know that I was being summoned to attend a conference to present a 15 minute update on my Task Force.

Now, I knew about the conference (responsible fellow that I am) and I had spent 30 minutes the previous night composing remarks for one of my colleagues to present on my behalf. Conferences are cool and all, but I'd been at work past 1AM Thursday night (and Wed night, and on several other recent occasions) and I thought a little extra sleep was something I deserved.

As it turned out the guy I emailed the remarks to didn't check his email before going to the conference that morning. Suck.

There was nothing much else I could do at that point--I got up, got dressed and headed to the conference. I gave my spiel to a room full of people who out ranked me by no small margin, enlightened them on assorted matters, and I left. The use of the word "shenanignas" got about 25% strange looks, 25% stifled laughs and 50% indifference. I had the pre-lunch time slot, so I think a certain level of boredom was inevitable, regardless of my content or delivery.

By the end of the presentation it was about the time I usually go to work on Fridays anyways, so I just went back to the office. I worked until about 1AM and then I headed home to pen this ode to Friday mornings lost.

Sigh...it's nights like this when I really miss my wife, cat, family and friends.