It's harvest season. This means two things. 1)I spend the majority of my day driving 2 mph. 2)I get sleepy. Yes, you see, Sleepy Sally visits me almost every day, some days sooner than expected. When she arrives I have to muster up all the energy I can to keep her from taking me down. I’m sure you’ve been a victim of Sleepy Sally yourself. But, before I tell you about her visit, I must fill you in on her history.
“Long ago, Sleepy Sally was created by the sleep gods of our universe, with the intention to help people drift off to a peaceful sleep. She sang all those who welcomed her to sleep with soft lullabies, and made sure they slept through the night. Each person woke up feeling alive and refreshed the next morning. She was confined to the pillows, beds, couches, and reclining chairs of life…until, she became bored and angered. Her every day routine became too monotonous and she realized people were beginning to ignore her presence as the world began to get busier and busier. Because of this people started sleeping less and less. She became jealous and engulfed with rage. She starved for attention, and she was determined to get it back. One day Sleepy Sally sneakily and so cleverly broke out of imprisonment during the daylight hours to visit all of the busy people in the world. From that day on, the world as we know it began to change and today she conquers the vast majority of living humans as they try to accomplish fun, work, and school instead of sleep. Sleepy Sally has earned a bad name in today’s society, because if you fall for her, you will not accomplish anything, or so we’ve been told, so she haunts all who ignore her.”
Well, now that you know her background let me tell you about my last two days with her. There I was in my combine, driving along listening to the radio when all of a sudden I caught myself in a long stare. She snuck in unnoticed but found her way to my eyes as she made them heavy, while suddenly making my cares light. My shoulders drooped and my body felt relaxed. A bit too relaxed. It was 3:00 pm and I was running on five hours of sleep with the intention to work until late into the night. How would I get rid of her? I needed to keep her occupied until I was done working. Red Bull. (Caffeine has become our number one Sleepy Sally killer, but since we are silly humans we can’t really kill her, only keep her away for 5 hours and supposedly bring her enemy, Ernest Energy, to surface.) So the Red Bull gave me wings. Unfortunately it didn’t give my combine wings however, as we were far from flying, still driving 1.8 mph through the golden field. Sleepy Sally had left me, but she was soon to return.
Today, on a better night’s sleep I figured she wouldn’t pay me a visit again. I figured wrong. I blame the radio for her ability to sneak in. The problem with radio stations is they play the same seven songs over and over again and we can’t help but drift off into a trance. At approximately 2:00 pm, Sleepy Sally came out of confinement and snuck into my cab. She decided to take a more enticing approach as she began to whisper sweet nothings in my ear telling me that if I only just closed my eyes, everything would be alright. She’s a temptress, that Sally. I focused hard on the radio but no matter how many times Katy Perry came on the airwaves, I felt far from ‘wide awake.’ I had every note of Usher’s song down so perfectly by the tenth time it was played I really did want to ‘scream’ at the DJ to play a new song. If it would have been possible I might have even called up Maroon 5 and told them to hurry up and come out with a new hit because I could sing their current song backwards, but I guess they must be hard to get a hold of if they are still making calls from a ‘payphone’. So I turned the radio down and listened to the machine instead. Sleepy Sally grabbed hold of me and we met face to face, and then…
Sorry about the inconvenience but its midnight and a very needy, attention starved, tempting feeling has come over me. I will have to finish my story later. Crap. It’s her again. She’s calling me. I can’t ignore her any longer. Goodnight world.
