Geez...Just Take The Day Off

Perhaps it was overdue. Perhaps this is in fact a picture of strength and not weakness, for the fact that she had skimmed through over 40 hours of flying, 17 days in a foreign country, 30kgs of baggage pulled across NYC streets, some 100 hours in accumulated sleep debt, surviving summer, autumn and more than half of a freeze-me-over-please winter, an overly obsessive week at work - all with the zest of an athlete and the energy of a show poodle.

Perhaps it was last weekend that really steered Titanic into the iceberg, when she was outrageously outnumbered on the dancefloor by ridiculously young freshies who looked like they should be back in their dorms studying hard for some exam, or at least be sparing if only just a cheap after-thought for their parents' money instead of spending it all on make-up, skimpy clothes, hair rollers and buying every cute female a drink so that these girls might think something of them, though sadly not realising how wrong they are on that one, or how about something a little more original like not making repeatedly stupid mistakes for the next couple of years that they'll regret but seriously who cares because when that time comes they'll conjure up some philosophical excuse to console themselves that this is all part of growing up, and learning to be stronger, wiser, and whatever the yadda yadda yadda is. Yes, they were still there when she left the club. Youth wasted on the young. Tragic.

Anyway, now Miss Immunity, long-standing employee, has decided to go on vacation after having worked tirelessly for the past 6 months. I sure wasn't going to approve it, but she threatened to quit. No arguments there. So out she went, the ink off my signature barely lifted from my pen, her straw hat on and bags packed, and she was gone.

The tissues are mounting. My glands are having a field day. My taste buds are going on strike. My throat is conducting a science experiment. My ears are turning bionic. My body is on lockdown.

Now I know that defeated feeling of late last week was merely a prelude.

Let the opera begin.