Prompt for the week: A bad place to fall asleep.
Enjoy!
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My response:
I blame it on the jetlag.
And of course, on whoever decided Grandma's funeral had to be in the evening. Why couldn't we be normal and have a nice, morning service followed by lunch? No. We had to be different, and the viewing didn't even start until 4pm.
Of course, four o'clock pm Mountain Standard Time is midnight in Germany, where I'd been living for the past two years.
And it's not that I don't stay up until midnight, on occasion. No, the problem was that I'd spent more than 36 hours awake, catching this delayed flight, missing that connection. And I've never been able to sleep on planes anyway. If anyone were to ever torture me, they'd put me on a plane until I was so brain-fried from lack of sleep that I couldn't help myself. Four different flights, and I couldn't sleep on any of them.
That gets blamed on paranoia. I realize the likelihood of the plane going down is less than getting in a car crash, but at least a car crash is on the ground, without 30,000 feet to fall to your death if something happens in the air.
But I digress. (Exhaustion. 'Nuff said.)
If we'd had the funeral in the morning, I would have been fine. But after a not sleeping forever, then spending the day preparing for the funeral, when it finally came time, I had nothing left. I sat down, notes in my hands, and listened to the song that opened the services.
My brother jostled me awake. There were already snickers in the audience, and when my brother realized I'd been drooling, he laughed, then tried to stop laughing and choked. I had drool all down my chin and my note cards had fallen to the ground. I wiped at my face and snatched at my cards, but the damage was done.
Aunt May did not approve.
Neither did Grandpa.
So much for my inheritance.
(For the record, this is NOT a memoir. I have not suffered this particular shame in my own life. Thank goodness!)
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