All Night Long

by Robison Wells

I'm getting old. Like, really, appallingly, grotesquely old. I'll be turning thirty on Friday.

Last night I discovered just how old I actually am, and it's broken my little heart. The basic story is this: I had a whole mess of homework, including a short little paper, and great big paper, and short online quiz. And, because last night was Family Home Evening, I got a late start on all of that.

(Tangent: my five year old wanted to make up a game to play last night and, since we were talking about Helping and Sharing, she devised a great new Helping and Sharing game. The basic rules are: you play Hide and Seek. If you happen to be "it" then you hold a Barbie. And, after counting, instead of saying "Ready or not, here I come!", you say "Helping and Sharing! Here I come to help and share!" I think I'm going to write it up and submit it to The Friend.)

Anyway, so I got started on all of this paper writing and quiz taking at about 9:00pm last night. I wasn't concerned about staying up late--I had to do that anyway because registration for fall semester started at midnight. So, I wrote and studied and typed. And, when midnight rolled around, I registered for classes (including Sales Management, because I want to grow up to be just like Jeff). And then it was about one in the morning, and I was still writing and studying. And it occured to me: I had to be up at 6:00am anyway. Why don't I just stay up all night long!? This is something that I hadn't done since my good old undergrad years. (I mean, I've spent many a sleepless night with little babies, but I haven't intentionally stayed up all night in many years.)

So, hurrah, I thought. That gives me way more time to write a paper. At 1:30am, I cracked open another cold, refreshing Coca-Cola, and settled in for a long haul to Homework Town.

I took my quiz, and I did surprisingly well on it. (Which isn't to say I got a high score. It was a Managerial Accounting quiz. If Managerial Accounting tasted like a big plate of fried chicken--with mashed potatoes and cream gravy and a deep-fried green beans--and I was the last person on earth, and everyone on earth would come instantly back to life and crown me their king if I would just eat one bite of Managerial Accounting, I would STILL NOT DO IT.)

And I finished the long paper, and moved on to the short paper. It was a case study of Newell Company acquiring Rubbermaid--and if that doesn't make you want to stay up all night, I don't know what does! Anyway, so I was sitting there writing it, swilling Coke and listening to Gnarls Barkley on my mp3 player, and I wrote the following sentence:

One of Bowers’ cautions when discussing M&As--especially product-extension M&As--recommendation relative size of companies was an established the acquired company is relative disadvantage compared to past M&As.

I took another swill of Coke to clear my thoughts, read the sentence again, and realized that I had just fallen asleep while writing. I think this is a first for me. (Incoherent, brain-dead writing is yet another situation where I'm trying to grow up to be just like Jeff! Zing!)

Anyway, I tried to keep going, but it just didn't work. I was so close--it was 3:15am!--but I just couldn't stay awake any longer. I set the alarm for 6:00, crawled into bed, and went to sleep.

And here I am today, with only one two and a half hours of sleep. And I'm surprisingly coherent. I mean, I drank two cans of Coke during my 8:00am class this morning, but that's normal, isn't it? ISN'T IT?