Stream of Unconsciousness...

I might’ve told you once about the loft I had in my last apartment. If I haven’t, I’m telling you now.

I had bought a loft for the apartment, since space in my room came at a premium. The bed had about two feet of clearance, from the place that I rested my head, to the ceiling.

It wasn’t long until I was used to waking up and smacking my head against the ceiling in the morning. There’s actually a dent and a smudge in the drywall where I hit it once-too-many, in the time that I lived there.

About 6 months later, I moved to another, cheaper residence. Space there wasn’t as tight, but I realized that I still wanted to take advantage of the almost 30% increase in floor space. So I decided that I would, once again, use the loft.

Bad idea.

The ceiling in question was that 80’s-ish drippy, pointy plaster stuff that’s fun to pick at when you have a bunk bed as a kid. It’s a little LESS fun when you’re 90lbs heavier and twice as tall.

You could probably guess that I learned really quickly to avoid sitting up to quickly in bed. Within about a week, I unconsciously figured out how to train that self-damaging habit out of myself.

But then I had a new problem.

Climbing into bed at night presented a problem. I could avoid hitting my head against the ceiling, but then there’s the issue of my “beastly” shoulders. Every night, while I was trying to bring my feet up over the side of the bed, I’d get scathed by the once-fun, unassuming plaster.

The problem didn’t really become evident until I woke up with blood on the pillow by my shoulder. Not much, but still blood.

It was also getting harder for my mom to believe that I still didn’t have a girlfriend when I kept on coming home with more claw-like scratches across my shoulders (not that that was necessarily a bad thing).

I just told her they were battle scars.

Well, I survived through another 4 months or so, until I moved out (shortly before starting my current job with Princess Cruises).

Okay, up to the present day. I currently share bunks with the Internet Manager on the Grand Princess.

For the longest time, I was unable to get up reliably with a traditional alarm clock. So I improvised, and since I was on a ship, the easiest thing to do was to set up the Wake-Up Call time on the telephone.

Truth be told, the phone ringer was a little too jarring in the morning…but it worked! By the time I climbed out of bed, onto the floor and got to the phone, I would have a MASSIVE headache (that was in about 10 seconds).

“Good Morning,” the automated phone system would say in a flat tone, “This is your...7…AM…wake up call. Good Morning. This is your...7…AM…wake up call. Good mor…”

Click.

I had finally gotten out of the half-asleep habit of trying to talk to the phone system. After greeting the phone back, it usually took a second for me to realize that there was no heartbeat on the other side of the line.

After about 2 or 3 weeks, I got pretty good at cutting down the time it took me to get to the phone. Promptly at 7am, the phone would ring, and in less than 4 seconds, I’d be up, over the side of the bed, on the floor, and have knocked the phone off the wall….all with 6 extra seconds to spare before headache threshold.

Now, sharing a cabin would usually mean that there were curtains around the beds to shut out the light, since my roomie and I shared the same 74 sq. foot living space. But for the first several weeks, we didn’t have any curtains, for one reason or another. So I talked with Sendo, our cabin steward, and he said that he’d try to scrounge up some curtains for us.

Two days later, I came back into my cabin after a long day. Whaddaya know? We’ve got curtains now! Now I could go to sleep at night, not worrying about when Vlatko would come into the cabin from the crew bar at night. This was a tremendous improvement in my sleep life.

So, first night with the curtains, I sleep completely uninterrupted.

7:00am – Phone starts blaring. I nearly launch myself off my pillow and grab the handrail and try to sling myself over the side of the bed. Only now…the curtains are in the way. So I stick one foot over the side of the bed, trying to feel for the desk, which is what I usually step on to get off the top bunk.

With just a little too much haste, I accidentally step on the curtain with my other foot. With the curtain in my face, and nothing to grab on with my other hand, my planted foot slips off the desk and under the bed, which is now behind me as I fall face first off the top bunk.

I land awkwardly on the chair in front of the desk, but I’m still moving, as the chair tips over. Desperately putting my hands out as I try to break my fall, my arm (and thankfully NOT my head) slams against the side of the desk, but not before I manage to smack the phone off the hook.

“Good morning!” I hear, landing on the floor with the wind knocked out of me. “This is your 7AM Wake-Up Fall.”