One minute late

There's nothing like watching your hubby wake up late to make you appreciate your job.  My job is not a punch-in time card type of job, and although we all have our start times, and we do swipe into the office with computer fobs (keeping you aware that management can track your ins and outs anytime they choose),  I am grateful.  For example this morning I was waking up to feed my sweet chubby Koa baby, and the clock read 5:45.  Ahhh, I thought, my alarm won't go off for 30 more minutes, this is great.  And then I heard the snore, not from one of the 3 children that usually sleep in our room, but from a larger, older sounding person. That was when I realized my hubby was fast asleep in the bed, and his start time was 6 am this morning.  Oops, I should have woken him up at 4:30 when I last looked at the clock.  Funny thing is, that is a later start time for UPS. Usually his start times vary from the 4 am to 5:30 range.

Another reason to love my job.  My start time is the same every day.  His varies constantly. Monday it might be 5:30.  Then Tuesday it could be 5:35.  Then Wednesday it might be 5:20.  How on earth does he remember these things!

So I remembered that last night he did set his alarm to give him enough time to get to work without being tardy, but here he was fast asleep 15 minutes before the bell.  Alarm must have gotten turned off.  So, realizing the seriousness of the situation, I jumped out of bed, shook him rather madly , not sure if I should calmly, or alarmingly wake him up.  His eyes cracked just enough to realize it was morning and I delivered the bad news: "Honey it's 5:45". That was all that was said before panic set in. He checked his trusty Ipod alarm, discovering the problem. The ringer was set to vibrate instead of set on high.

 Then I had the luxury of climbing back in bed with my chubby koala bear, and listening to the sounds of an accelerated plan.  I was amazed how fast he could get his clean work clothes from the garage (easier to just keep his work clothes in the garage, because they get washed constantly, and they don't need nice folding jobs), use the bathroom, get on work boots, find the keys, cell phone off the charger, grab whatever snacks for work he needs to keep him going for 4 hours of top speed truck-loading work.

Within minutes I saw the dining room lights flash off, and heard the door quietly slam.  I honestly don't know how he can do things that fast yet that calm.  And big bummer for him...this whole week the cul-de-sac and surrounding street that we live on got torn up and re-layered with a nice black a/c overlay.  The only problem is that there is nowhere to park in our entire complex with 2 full cul-de-sacs displaced for a week.  Cars were parked in all kinds of red zones, making it like a silent traffic jam when you are trying to get out of the complex.  Luckily for us, some very nice neighbors up the hill who aren't yet impacted by the new pavement job, allowed us to park Happy (the volvo) and Optimus Prime (the green van) in their driveways for the week.  So, my speeding hubby had to bolt his way up the drying road, slip through the baracades in the dark, and run at top speed up the hill, bag and water in tow, to the van, and get that car in gear as fast as he could.  Luckily the streets of SLO are pretty quiet before about 7:30 am, and he doesn't encounter much traffic.  But speeding isn't a good idea when there is low traffic, because the cops are much more likely to pop out and surprise you.  It's about a ten-minute drive to the UPS center, and when you are the last one to arrive, there is no parking within sight of the entrance.  So he had to find a spot far down the road and then sprint to the warehouse, making sure all his gear was grabbed in the rush.  He zips inside, runs to one of the computer stations, logs in, types in the employee ID and password, hits enter, and then clicks "Punch In".  All that effort, with such precision, and what does the computer read?  6:01.  Late.

What's the big deal about being one minute late, you might wonder.  Well, you can only be late 3 times in a year or you suffer a consequence.  I think he deserves a medal for going from dreamtime to becoming part of the UPS machine, in 16 minutes.