ME! I’ve sleep-ridden to work!
Back in my “now I’m 20, so I’m MATURE” days, I worked the midnight to 8:00am shift at Disneyland. My apartment was less than a mile to work, so I rode my bike. (In truth, I didn’t have a car, so my bike was what I took anywhere.) Anyway, since the ride was less than five minutes – I was in terrific shape in those days – I would wake up at the last possible second, throw on some clothes, hop on the bike and punch in at Disneyland all in under ten minutes.
I’m not a night person. I’m one of those insufferably cheerful morning people who drink decaf coffee and are still bubbly and happy at 6:00am. (Yes, it’s okay to hate me.) Oh, for awhile I was a morning person trapped inside the body of a night person, but it never agreed with me. More than a few of those nights, I don’t even remember my watch alarm going off, getting dressed, or riding my bike. Normally it was the “CHUNK!” of the time clock that woke me up.
I don’t exactly sleep-ride, but I have lost attention enough to riding on occasion. Once I was riding along by an elementary school near where I used to live and zoned out so thoroughly that I found myself on the asphalt with my right hand all cut up lying among glass and plastic fragments.
I had brushed too close to a parked car and put my right hand, gripping the handlebar, through a car’s left-hand rear-view mirror, tearing it completely off the mounts and shattering it. I wandered into the school (it was after classes let out for the day, so I didn’t freak out any youngsters), dripping blood and looking for who I owed a new rear-view mirror.
Thankfully, I’ve never sleep-travelled to work – I just oversleep and have done with it… And if a clock were to go “CHUNK!”, it’s probably because it’s bounced off my head after someone’s thrown it 😉
(Side note: First time I saw a time clock which worked on “decimal time”, I panicked slightly, because the punched time was “9:75”, and I’m like “WHAT???” :))
Ha! Pete: I remember the Disneyland timeclock!!! (I, too, worked at D-land)… It was LOUD! The things you remember… I did the closing shift though… As I was clocking out, you were clocking in.
AAaaaa! Hands through rear-view mirrors! Sounds painful! But I know about the zoning out…
Yeah, the decimal system threw me off, too. I worked at a mom & pop newspaper in Fallbrook, and I had to tally up timecards at one point… and the conversion thing drove me nutty!
Well, I’ve done the zone-out while descending my local mountain. Not uncommon actually, I’ll be carving through the turns and then “poof” I’ll be 1,000 feet lower and have no recollection of any of it. Kind of weird. I’d do a toon of it except I’m doubtful non-cyclists would really relate to it.
Brig: Actually, I found that working out “decimal time” calculations was much easier than trying to deal with base-60 calculations 🙂 Mind you, when I was working in Pricing at Target (before I was thankfully shifted from there to the registers), I found that Excel spreadsheets can do time calculations with not too much jiggery-pokery 🙂
Crow: That’s a scary thought, zoning out on a mountain road! And I know what you mean about being a bit esoteric as a comic subject: I’ve had to shelve a few ideas for mine when I’ve suspected that only a few might get the joke or situation…
ME! I’ve sleep-ridden to work!
Back in my “now I’m 20, so I’m MATURE” days, I worked the midnight to 8:00am shift at Disneyland. My apartment was less than a mile to work, so I rode my bike. (In truth, I didn’t have a car, so my bike was what I took anywhere.) Anyway, since the ride was less than five minutes – I was in terrific shape in those days – I would wake up at the last possible second, throw on some clothes, hop on the bike and punch in at Disneyland all in under ten minutes.
I’m not a night person. I’m one of those insufferably cheerful morning people who drink decaf coffee and are still bubbly and happy at 6:00am. (Yes, it’s okay to hate me.) Oh, for awhile I was a morning person trapped inside the body of a night person, but it never agreed with me. More than a few of those nights, I don’t even remember my watch alarm going off, getting dressed, or riding my bike. Normally it was the “CHUNK!” of the time clock that woke me up.
I don’t exactly sleep-ride, but I have lost attention enough to riding on occasion. Once I was riding along by an elementary school near where I used to live and zoned out so thoroughly that I found myself on the asphalt with my right hand all cut up lying among glass and plastic fragments.
I had brushed too close to a parked car and put my right hand, gripping the handlebar, through a car’s left-hand rear-view mirror, tearing it completely off the mounts and shattering it. I wandered into the school (it was after classes let out for the day, so I didn’t freak out any youngsters), dripping blood and looking for who I owed a new rear-view mirror.
Thankfully, I’ve never sleep-travelled to work – I just oversleep and have done with it… And if a clock were to go “CHUNK!”, it’s probably because it’s bounced off my head after someone’s thrown it 😉
(Side note: First time I saw a time clock which worked on “decimal time”, I panicked slightly, because the punched time was “9:75”, and I’m like “WHAT???” :))
Ha! Pete: I remember the Disneyland timeclock!!! (I, too, worked at D-land)… It was LOUD! The things you remember… I did the closing shift though… As I was clocking out, you were clocking in.
AAaaaa! Hands through rear-view mirrors! Sounds painful! But I know about the zoning out…
Yeah, the decimal system threw me off, too. I worked at a mom & pop newspaper in Fallbrook, and I had to tally up timecards at one point… and the conversion thing drove me nutty!
Well, I’ve done the zone-out while descending my local mountain. Not uncommon actually, I’ll be carving through the turns and then “poof” I’ll be 1,000 feet lower and have no recollection of any of it. Kind of weird. I’d do a toon of it except I’m doubtful non-cyclists would really relate to it.
Brig: Actually, I found that working out “decimal time” calculations was much easier than trying to deal with base-60 calculations 🙂 Mind you, when I was working in Pricing at Target (before I was thankfully shifted from there to the registers), I found that Excel spreadsheets can do time calculations with not too much jiggery-pokery 🙂
Crow: That’s a scary thought, zoning out on a mountain road! And I know what you mean about being a bit esoteric as a comic subject: I’ve had to shelve a few ideas for mine when I’ve suspected that only a few might get the joke or situation…