2014. The year I was a builder.
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I've been having rough luck lately. My usual level of clumsiness, propensity for ridiculous situations and general inability to function in public have all spiralled out of control and I seem to be walking into far more malfunctions than fair.
Take last week. I've been working from a not so close location and the bus has become a must (the 800 at 7:54am to be precise). Ordinarily I can manage with not many hours of sleep, but on this particular Thursday, my 6 hours were not enough. Even as I sat at the bus stop (a sorry sight), my head was nodding forwards and I could barely keep my eyes open.
The fight to remain conscious took an aggressive turn minutes away from my destination. I was quite literally holding my eyes open and biting my cheek to stay focused, but even that wasn't holding back the waves of sleep. The inevitable happened. I gave in. Setting an alarm for five minutes time and putting my headphones in I leant forwards and allowed my body to shut down.
Twenty minutes later.
I was awoken by a pain in my face. Specifically from contact with the head of the man in front of me. A groggy sense of realisation hit me as I fell sideways, completely out of control of my limbs. Landing awkwardly in the aisle, my momentum wasn't done with me yet, and I rolled down the small number of steps - an audience of twenty doing their best to hide bemusement and bewilderment as a twenty something squirmed on the floor.
Nothing made sense, other than the fact I definitely wasn't in control of this situation. Hurrying to stand and retain any sort of dignity (my skirt had somehow made it's way to my boobs and I was definitely giving everyone an eyeful) I then looked out of the window. I had missed my stop. First thing first, my hurried and babbled apology to the middle aged man clutching the back of his head before, I ran to the driver.
'Please let me off. I'm so late for work'. In what I realised was a rare case of sympathy, he stopped at the next bus stop, his words ringing in my ears as I ran on.
'Maybe next time don't party so hard.'
They all thought I was drunk. If only that were the case.
I can't even imagine how much the man who had had the misfortune of sitting in front of me would have hated his day. I hit him with some force.
This is the real reason why I run - I still had a mile to cover before I was back at the right stop.
Gah.