This Is Your Brain on Jet Lag

You get home from Hawaii on Sunday evening at four. You go straight to your mother's for Easter Dinner. You bring your kids home. You do four loads of laundry and go to bed.

On Monday your husband leaves the country again. You go to your mother's to pick up Easter dinner leftovers. You forget half of them but that's normal, you're a forgetful person. You go back for the mashed potatoes.

You also go grocery shopping and buy stuff for book club, which you just realized you're hosting at your house in two days. Shortly thereafter you look at the calendar and realize that book club is not until next week and wonder what you're going to do with twelve avocados.

On Tuesday you go to Shoppers Drug Mart and stand in line to pick up your prescription. You give your name and wonder why it's taking the girl so long to find it. You then realize that you're not actually there to pick up a prescription, you're there to buy cold medicine for your daughter. You apologize and slink away.

You go out into the parking lot and realize to your abject horror that you're parked in a handicapped spot. You look around wondering if anyone noticed and then realize that it's not, in fact, a handicapped spot but a former handicapped spot with no sign and the pavement symbol mostly painted out, just like you realized when you PARKED THERE TEN MINUTES AGO.

On Wednesday you drive out to Stittsville to discuss and sign your final evaluation from your work placement. It is glowing and wonderful, and you really hope you don't do anything jet laggish to screw things up. It goes pretty well, except you drive over a curb in the parking lot on your way out.

On Thursday you pick up your mother to go watch your daughter in the school play. You stop for gas on the way. You put in your credit card, follow the instructions, pick up the nozzle and stick it in the hole and wonder why nothing's happening. You're about to yell "THIS THING ISN'T WORKING" when you realize you just forgot to select the grade.

On Friday you almost scoop a half cup of uncooked rice into your dog's bowl instead of dog food.

On Saturday you watch funny half-naked men and have some drinks.

On Sunday you throw axes and feel thankful that you can blame anything wonky on the drinking.

On Monday you think you should be fully recovered, but you still feel the urge to yell "THIS THING ISN'T WORKING" at intervals, and the thing not working is your brain.

No wonder my husband is kinda dumb sometimes. This traveling business is hard on the thinking, y'all.


Comments

StephLove said…
Whenever we go to Oregon I spend the first three days groggy and hoping people will stop interacting with me and let me crawl off to bed for an afternoon nap because I've been up since 3 a.m. Then I have a couple good days and it's time to go home and do it all in reverse, which for me isn't as bad, though many people find west to east harder.

I bet Hawaii was worth it, though. It was when Beth, Noah, & I went. (He was 8 months old and a terrible sleeper so jet lag didn't seem to make much difference.)
Nicole said…
Yeesh, Hawaii is like 7 hours behind you or something. I always feel messed up for like a week and it's only 4 for me. Wait, that would make it 6 for you. Wait, what? No, that's right. Whoa, this is the worst comment ever. Whatever, I am not deleting it. Hope you get back on schedule soon!
Julie Leclair said…
crazy hard! but it looks like it was totally worth it!
l said…
I almost peed myself reading this. You are the best writer Allison! xoxo
It sounds painful but maybe it was almost worth it if it included funny half-naked men. (I don't have jet lag at all, and it took me almost 2 minutes to correctly type that sentence. Guess my brain ain't working either.)

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