August 11th 6:25pm - Stove

I am a procrastinator. I am a severe procrastinator. In high school I wouldn't begin my homework until eleven at night. One time I had an essay due the following morning at nine. I began at eleven-thirty that night. Three-thirty in the morning found me sitting at the computer with a nodding head and incessantly closing eyes. It was the exhausted-head-nod-jerk-yourself-awake kind. In over an hour I wrote one sentence. That's when I resolved something needed to be done. My eyes puffy, my head swimming, I came to the always-brilliant decision to turn on the stove and put my head over the flame in an effort to wake myself up. For some (still) imperceptible reason, I did exactly that: I turned on the stove and placed my head over the flames. I stood, stationary, for ten seconds or so before leaping back, fully alert. I shrieked and sprinted the three steps to the sink. I wrenched the faucet on and threw my hair underneath the water. In my semi-conscious state, pulling my hair back before situating my head above a fire simply didn't occur to me. In my semi-conscious state, not putting my head over flames never occurred to me. I had effectively managed to light my hair on fire in an effort to wake up.

In retrospect: when trying to stay awake, putting your head in the freezer would have an equivalent effect as over a stove/flame. Possibly not the same extreme state of alertness that I was thrust into, but it would have presumably woken me up enough!

No comments: