Staff Meetings
	I've always been a night person. Now that I'm retired I stay up all night every night painting or writing. It's my quiet time with no interruptions. When I worked at Busch Gardens I would stay up every night till 2:A.M. I'd sleep for four hours, get up at six in order to be at work at seven in the morning. That was my regular routine. But I got more than four hours sleep every day because I'd get home from work at four in the afternoon and sleep from four until six P.M. I got almost the daily amount of sleep needed, it was just broken into two parts. On the weekends I'd catch up on whatever sleep I was deprived of. I can't tell you the number of times when I got up from my afternoon nap at six or six-thirty, looked out of the window, groggy-headed, and thought because it was low light, Oh God! I'm gonna be late for work! I'd throw my zoo uniform half on and tear out the door with my boots in my hand, and down the steps and jump in my truck with one side of my shirt still hanging out. I'd start down my long winding driveway that snakes through the woods driving as fast and as slow as I could to avoid running over any of my animals wandering lose on the property. I'm not sure what would always tip me off that it was 6:00 in the evening and not in the morning. I guess the subconscious awareness of the surroundings such as where the peacocks, jungle fowl, and rheas were and what they were doing. But I'd always figure it out before I got to the front gate. I was fine at work as long as I stayed active. Staff meetings were the worst. Sitting there for an hour and a half quiet and still was so difficult to stay awake. The Graphics Department was under the jurisdiction of the Zoo Education Department so there usually wasn't a lot of discussion about the artwork that Margo and I did. So I sat with my eyes open as wide as I could. I'm sure I looked like a demented ventriloquist's dummy. Our boss, Dr. Breuggeman, was extremely strict. Her personality alone could go bear hunting with a switch. The part-timers would scatter in all directions when they heard the loud clacking sound her high-heeled shoes made when she came down the hallway. I think she kind of enjoyed it. In the staff meetings we sat with our chairs in a big circle. I always made a special point to sit next to Dr. Breuggeman. Sometimes co-workers would say, "Ah, buttering up the boss, I see. Sitting right next to Judi Breuggeman." I actually always sat there for a reason; so she wouldn't see how hard I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I think she probably knew that was the reason. She was extremely intelligent and not much slipped by her eagle eye. She really was a pretty nice person; she just kept it under wraps. Then one day I got the idea that solved everything. I took two eyelid-shaped pieces of tape that fit right on top of my eyes when they were closed. I painted eyes on them that I thought looked just like mine. They had a fairly real quality and were wide open. I hurriedly stuck them on in the Graphics Room and ran out the door to the Conference Room for the staff meeting. "Oh shoot, I dropped one." I stuck it back on and quick, claimed my chair before anyone else got it. It was a very up meeting. Everyone was in such good humor that I wasn't even sleepy. They all looked so happy like, at any minute, they were going to burst into laughter. I found out why. One of my "eyes" was looking straight at them and the other one, the one that had fallen off, was looking over at Judi Breuggeman, next to me. I remembered someone, during the meeting, it may have been Chris, kept pointing to her eye under the guise of rubbing it, to let me know. I just smiled back at her with, I'm sure, the goofiest grin ever. No wonder everyone could hardly contain their mirth. I did drift off right toward the end. Margo or somebody nudged me when the meeting was over. I wonder if Margo's sense of humor ever tempted her to leave me sitting there snoozing all by myself in that big circle of empty chairs after the meeting, with my painted "eyes" wide open staring at the floor. That would've been too funny. Lash Out Loud