Dateline 1-1-11 0341:  I’m awakened to the phone vibrating by my head: new text message.  Meanwhile as I’m grabbing the phone and my glasses so I can actually read my message I hear the sounds of old school video games accompanied by adolescent boy giggles coming from across the hall: Beav and the Bestie are still awake. OMFGWTF?  Just before I read the text message I made the vow to tip-toe across the hall and deliver a hissed: “GO TO BED” lecture. As I fumble with the phone I pray the text is a drunk dial from Hawai’i).  Not so lucky to be dialed by my friends at a joint birthday party on Oahu.  Oh. No.  Quite the opposite:

“Im stranded @ __________ and ___________ my buddy put the wrong gas in his car now it won’t run” [I'm not even going to try and wrap my head around the "wrong gas"]

OMFGWTF is again my next thought because this text from Wally translates: “I’m about 45 minutes from home and it’s like -12 outside, the roads are icy, can you come and get me because I have to work this afternoon.”

I wanted to text: “Sucks to be you. Call a cab. You have the money.” I toned it down with only one  swear word and a “please phone a friend. I have to work in three hours”  I mashed the phone under the pillow waiting for it to vibrate again, praying to God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Ceiling Cat, Basement Cat and Ra that he would find a ride or if I had to get him I wouldn’t crash the car on ice and wouldn’t have to work after all because the idea of a twelve to fourteen hour shift on three hours of bad sleep wasn’t my idea of fun.  And I also prayed that this wasn’t what my year was going to be like: Sleep deprivation and bailing my eldest son out of jams; while admonishing my other son to just go to bed already. 

Reader, one of the deities listed above heard my beggy prayer and the eldest got a ride home from a friend who owed him;  Beav finally went to sleep and stopped giggling over his old school game; and I didn’t have to work after  the three hour nap I had masquerading as a full night’s sleep.   And all of this came with the double bonus of spying on people around the world via web cams (all in warmer climates than our own) and watching movies with The Girl.  We were going shopping to exchange some Christmas presents but I was a little sleep deprived and feeling lazy so the only time I left the house was to walk out to the car and put on my big girl panties and have a civil exchange with Ward and his delightful wife, Alexis Carrington in their brand new fancy Chrysler something or other.

I could be down with a year of this.