BITR: One thing that annoys the living daylights out of me

Ever since I got the job of riding on a truck for 10 hours a day, I haven’t had any trouble sleeping. It’s a lot of riding, I know; but that really can take the energy out of you. Not to mention loading and unloading the truck several times a day. The first time I ever rode on the truck for a full day, I came home and just laid on my bed until I fell asleep. This was at about 8 pm. I woke up later at about midnight with my lights and my work clothes still on. After I had changed clothes and turned the lights off, I immediately went back to bed. The next morning I got up at 9 am, feeling like I had slept for an entire epoch.

Maybe I’m just really weak or something, but the job always keeps me ready to hit the hay every night. On weekends I tend to sleep about 10 hours at night and then take a nap on the afternoon of the next day (unless I have to get up for church in the morning). I can fall asleep almost anywhere, and many times at home I don’t actually fall asleep in my own bed. But I do get there, eventually.

I love sleeping, though. I love being able to close my eyes and zone out of consciousness, fulfilling my body’s need for rest. That’s why I get so angry when my ability to fall asleep is somehow taken from me. I do all the right things. I drink milk, get a little snack, make sure the temperature in the house is right, and find a TV program that is watchable but not so entertaining that it keeps me awake (ESPN, The Weather Channel, or an educational program usually do the job). Sometimes I start reading a chapter of a book and that almost always makes me fall asleep. The methods are out there, but sometimes none of them produce any kind of results.

I say this because apparently over the last few days I have been afflicted with some kind of plague or something. It started as a Sunday afternoon post-nap headache, but as of last night it was the thing that was keeping my body from its desired rest. Sure, I fell asleep initially. But at 3 am I awoke to the burning pain of cold air passing through my inflamed nostrils and throat. Unless I figured out a way to breathe out of something besides my face, or simply not breathe at all, I wasn’t going to be sleeping anymore. And about 13 hours later, I still haven’t.

Of course, affliction isn’t necessarily the only thing that can keep a person up at night. Christmas, for instance, is sure to keep me from my REM goodness. On Christmas Eve, I’m always so excited about opening presents in the morning that I have absolutely no desire to rest. It’s all about getting that Nintendo 64 out of the box and playing Super Mario 64 for the first time ever. Nothing else matters. I’m 22 and I still feel this way.

Lying in bed without being able to sleep is just about the most annoying thing imaginable. When I’ve already watched Elimidate 8 times, memorized the local forecast (on every 8 of the hour), and seen the same old MLB highlights of Josh Hamilton going yard 28 times in the first round of the home run derby, I start moving towards borderline insanity. Then I look over at the clock and realize I’m supposed to get up in an hour, and there’s already some light on the horizon outside my window. This is a bad thing.

I hate not being able to sleep. I hate it with a passion. I love rest like I love a great meal at Cracker Barrel. When I can’t get it and, worse than that, when I have to lie in bed and think about how I can’t get it, everything in my world goes wrong. It doesn’t happen all that much anymore, but when it does, it sure does make me thankful for the nights that I lay my head down on a pillow and go to sleep almost instantly.

(p)age after (p)age

Tonight I was on the Target side of Trussville walking down that big strip of stores right by the highway. I was by myself, walking the sidewalk from Target to Books-a-Million. Observing the parking lot scenery as I walked, I noticed that a few of the smaller stores were already closed for the night. Most of the lights were out inside, and dark silhouettes of chairs and shelves rose from the floors and stood still in the middle of the dim shops. A light was left on as they always are left on in these places, I never have understood why. What is there to see and who is there to see it anyway?

Closed businesses look very strange at night. All the people who work there in the day are gone and the building is just left there by itself to wait until the next day when the people come back to work again. Sometimes when I drive home at night, I go by the place I work and glance at the all-too familiar thrift store with its long aisles of clothing and furniture, all dimly lit by the lights that have been left on. In the daytime, customers are going in and out, walking up the aisles and looking for junk they can buy. At the cash registers, Joan and Fannie are checking out the customers, taking their money and giving them change. Every now and then a customer will give them a tag, and they will call over their radios to a Royal Pine guy, who comes to load up the customer’s furniture for them.

The workers who price the merchandise come out from the doors in the back every now and then with buggies full of more items to sell. They push their buggies to their respective departments in the store, stopping every now and then to put something in its proper place. Sometimes they will get caught up in a conversation with a customer, and after several minutes of gossiping and speculating on what this world’s coming to, they will get on with their duties.

At the back, where we take in donations, sits a pile of unusable junk along with broken furniture and stained mattresses. Eddie and I, on our Mission: Possible Bargain Center box-truck, routinely bring in loads of new items and then haul off all the garbage to the landfill. Eddie eases the truck in to the loading dock while I stare blankly ahead, waiting to get out and go grab a bite to eat next door at Jack’s. We make our way in, making small talk with everybody we meet on our way to the time clock. On good days, when we are feeling well and have plenty of energy, we stop and get into elaborate, detailed conversations. On bad days, or even just normal days (and believe me, there are more of these than good ones), we muster up a “Hey, how are you?” or in Eddie’s case a low, “Alright man” and just keep walking. The only real goal here is to finish the day and go home.

The other day, after everything was finished and nothing was left to be done, Seth and I took a golf club out behind the store and practiced our swings on a few glass whisky bottles. We made a complete and total mess, and I couldn’t help but cringe at the crunching sound the cars made as they pulled up to the dock and right over the tiny pieces of glass strewn out in the lot. I left at 6 pm that day, making sure to avoid the broken glass as I drove around the building to take the side road out to the highway. The sun crept down in the sky and an hour later Seth left along with everyone else. And when we were all gone the place became still and quiet.

For two and a half years I have been working at that thrift store. I stay there until evening on the days I work, and then I return in the morning to do it all over again. Two and a half years. I’ve become pretty familiar with a lot of things that go on there. I know that every time Eddie and I get back with a load, Charlie, who works at the back door, is going to ask if we are going to the dump. I know that almost every night, the same customers are going to come in 30 minutes or less before we close and wait until exactly 7 pm to pay for their items. I know that every Monday morning we are all going to complain about what a mess it is in the back, and about how people who leave their garbage there while we are closed are evil, worthless, trashy, selfish scumbags who should take their crap to the dump where it belongs. And of course, I know that every morning I am going to find a way to get to Jack’s so I can get my morning sausage or gravy biscuit, medium sweet tea, and daily newspaper.

It’s been two and a half years. When I first signed up for this I never thought I would be here for this long.

But I’m still there, and no end is in sight. Sometimes it seems to me that in life you go through seasons and periods where things change but they don’t really. It’s like you are reading a book and there is page after page but you keep wondering when this chapter is going to end and when the next one is actually going to begin. When I graduated high school, I really did begin a new chapter in my life. A lot of things changed then. I had to start accepting more responsibility, I no longer got to see my friends every single day, I had to get a job, my dog died, I started college, and so many other things happened that made life different. But that chapter is still going on, partly because of my indecision and mistakes that I’ve made, but also because of circumstances beyond my control.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my job. I get a lot of privileges there that I wouldn’t want to go without. But I guess a person goes down a certain road for a substantial length of time and he gets tired of that road and starts wanting to travel a new one – especially if he knows that the road he’s on was never going to take him anywhere in the first place. I think I’m that guy.

So here’s to the day when I drive by the thrift store, see the dim lights on with no cars in the parking lot, and think to myself, “Man, I remember those years I spent there.” And then I will think about Charlie, Metal Man (Ron), Eddie, Wanda, “Black Santa Clause,” Bobby, TeLisa, Seth, all the Royal Pine guys, and everybody else who made my first job a little more interesting or frustrating or tolerable. I will smile to myself, thinking of all the TVs that were busted with bowling balls, the funny looking hats that were tried on, and the many accidents that happened because of carelessness. And I will remember that the years that went by at that place really weren’t bad at all, but the years to come proved that leaving at the right time was the right choice - and the perfect setup for a brand new chapter.

Please Pray for Andy's Father

Some of the people who read this blog probably already know about this, but in case you don't know, Andy's father had a massive heart attack earlier today. From what I heard, he is going to be alright but is currently in ICU at the hospital.

Andy has been a dear friend of mine for a very long time. I guess he is not necessarily my "youth pastor" anymore, but either way he is definitely THE spiritual leader in my life right now, and has been for the last several years. Andy has shaped me perhaps more than any other person I know, and has clearly made a giant impact on my life in many ways.

I am positive that Andy's dad played a giant role in the person he is, so I ask you to please pray for him. Pray for Andy's dad and Andy and their whole family as they go through a very scary circumstance. May God take care of his health and that whole family in this difficult time.