» Sleepwalking

Sleepwalking to college?
It was September 2000. It was a balmy late summer afternoon, and I had just come home from college.

It was also the time of the fuel protests at various oil depots around the country. My house at the time happened to be a few miles from an oil refinery and the main refinery route ran past my house.

Anyway, the college bus dropped me off at the bus stop just down from my house at about 4.30pm. As I said, it was a hot and humid afternoon and I was feeling knackered. I went into the house and flopped down on my bed. I vaguely remember changing out of my funky college clothes (I'm lying - I was a chubby little geek back then with a dark green Fila sweater and ill-fitting navy Reebok jogging bottoms. No style at all.), opening my bedroom windows to let some air in and getting into bed.

I awoke to a hell of a noise coming from outside my house. Horns tooting, sirens going, lots of revving etc. It was obviously the fuel protesters. I looked up at the clock on my wall and it notified me that it was five-to-eight. ARRGHH! I've slept 13 hours! I jumped out of bed, went straight into the shower, got dressed and by this time it was quarter-past-eight. None of my family were around - I guessed they were still sleeping. I succumbed to the fact that I'd probably missed the college bus and would have to get a lift off one of the folks.

I went into the living room and flicked on the TV. "ITV" came on. "Football?!" I quietly exclaimed to myself. "Where the hell is GMTV? Perhaps they're having technical difficulties or something". I went into my parents room. The bed was neatly made and no-one to be seen. Hmmm. This was getting strange.

At that moment another convoy of tooting lorries, tractors and vans went past my house. I went outside to watch the early morning festival of noise. I walked a little way down the road to a small gathering of my neighbours all watching the convoy. I went up to them and told them in a slightly panicky voice that I'd missed the college bus and I don't know where my folks were. Just at that moment, my mother comes round the corner with the dog. My mind couldn't work out why my parents and neighbours were behaving so oddly to me!

Then it finally dawned on me. It wasn't morning. It was still the same ****ing day, and I'd actually only been asleep for 3 hours!

I realised that it was around the time of the autumnal equinox. Therefore 8am didn't seem much different from 8pm in terms of daylight. That's what fooled my uncharacteristically slow brain!

I felt very stupid. Luckily my neighbours at the time were too wealthy and stupid to realise what an arse I made of myself.

Length? Far too long.
(Thu 23rd Aug 2007, 2:40, More)