Day 18 -- Nightie-Night, Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite.

I can’t remember the last time I had a bed time. Still, it was the consensus of the group that certain rules and procedures need to be followed if we are going to last a year in the store. I have yet to find a conch for speakers to hold during our meetings. For some reason, seashells are kind of difficult to come by in a landlocked state. Who knew?
Still, everyone has agreed on a set bed time. Truth be told, once you cannot watch The Colbert Report or Conan, there is not a lot of reasons to stay up uncomfortably late. The other side of this coin is that with aluminum foil covering the windows, we have little sunlight in our lives. We need to make adaptations for that.
Still, we have all established that it is Lights Out at 10:00. Generally speaking, people start winding down around 9:30 and begin to go to their respective corners. It is a nice quiet time. Some of us are still old enough to get the joke, “Good night, John Boy.” And that gets called out about once a week.
But people go lights out at 10:00 pm and we do between a 6:00 and 6:30 am reveille. I really thought Kasondra would be the one to lead this charge but Lance’s gung-ho spirit is typically the one that gets it going. Rather than go from person to person, he likes to call out over the intercom system to get people going.
I know that a bedtime may seem kind of childish to an outside observer but there is actually pretty good reasoning behind it. Whenever Reason’s would do their wellness screening for employees, it seems like one of the comments that most people got on their form answers was that they needed to get more sleep.
A solid eight hours of sleep keeps you healthy and alert. It improves your immune system – which I feel is pretty darn solid considering there is a killer virus floating around out there. And statistics have shown that a drowsy driver can be even more dangerous behind the wheel than a drunk driver. I just keep thinking back to Hicks in Aliens. “I want you two patrolling the perimeter. But stay frosty... and alert. We can’t afford to let one of those bastards in here.”
I need everyone frosty. Mad Eye Moody preached, “Constant vigilance!” (Maybe two movie references in a single blog entry are too much…) Still, that is the situation we are dealing with. And you have to stay at the top of your game at all times, especially in this hellscape that we have been thrust into.
So if you are out there, if you are a survivor, and if you are reading this, then get your beauty sleep. It is more important than you realize. You can’t run on fumes forever. That gas tank does run out. So get somewhere safe and recharge those batteries. The life you save may be your own…
More soon.