The Night Morning Never Came

It was the year 1999.  I was working at a corporate pig farm that lay about fifty-odd miles outside of Cedar City, which was where I lived at the time.  The work was very hard, but I was perservering.  I was determined to succeed at the silly job, even though it was evident that the job was all wrong for me.  I mean, I went to work there because I love animals, and I naively thought it would be fun.  It was a factory farm.  Ha.

Anyway, I came home from work one afternoon, exhausted.  Even though it was only about 5:00 PM, I decided to just go to bed.  I had worked my butt off that day.  I had to get up at 3:30 to go to work, so it's not like I was breaking any sonic barriers with my sleep.  I was too tired, so I went to bed.

When I awoke the next morning, it was already 8:00.  Holy crap.  I was already two hours late for work.  I frantically searched for, and found, the phone number to my workplace and called it on the archaic land line phone we had back in those days.  I got a recording that said this number had been disconnected.

Desperate, I dialed the operator.  She tried to call the number, then she looked it up and told me it was a cell phone from California.  I got out the phone book and dialed the farm's corporate office in Milford, but no one answered.  Bereft, and knowing I had failed, I dismally put the slip of paper away.  The phone number I needed wasn't listed in the phone book, and the corporate offices weren't answering, and I had somehow managed to write down the number to my farm wrong.  I couldn't look it up online because it was 1999, and even if someone in my apartment had had the internet I certainly wouldn't have known how to use it, or how to hack into their computer without the password.  I'm a child of the 1920s.  So I did the last thing left to me to do.  I went and sat on the stairs of my apartment and started crying.

Barely a moment later, my roommate walked in and asked me what was wrong.  I told her through my tears, relating the entire story in all its gory details.  I had done everything a person could do.

"It's too late."  I sobbed.  "I'm already fired.  It's a no-call no-show.  It's all over.  I don't know.  Should I drive in to work?  Should I try to explain what happened?"

My roomie was staring at me with a very strange expression.  She kept staring after I had finished speaking, and after several seconds it started to make me uncomfortable.

"What?"  I demanded.

"Um, Cydni?  It's 8:00 at night.  Are you really supposed to be at work at 8:00 at night?"

I didn't comprehend.  I probably made a very humorous facial expression, the one where my mouth falls open and my whole face goes slack.

"What?"

"It's 8:00 at night.  Do you think it's 8:00 in the morning?  Because I would be really surprised if you needed to be at work right now."

"It's 8:00 at night?  I repeated thickly.  "It's not morning?"

"No.  You're not late to work.  You're fine."

By now my roomie was struggling to contain her laughter, and as my comprehension dawned it brought with it crushing embarrassment.  Oh, hud, I thought.  (I really did think that.  I hadn't met any Hudsons yet, and in Cedar City many people used "hud" to mean, like, "shit."  So they weren't swearing.  And I was like that back then.)

I ran back into my room.  I probably fell to my knees and started dramatically praying, cause that's the kind of girl I was.  The humiliation was unbearable.  I had taken a nap and awakened three hours later.  I hadn't slept all night and ignored my alarm.  It was fine, except that I had thoroughly made an ass of myself.

Well, it took thirteen years, but now I can finally look back on it and laugh.

Also, this.