Good Morning, Sunshine!!

I haven't been the first one out of bed in my household for weeks. But today I'm up at 10:45am. No alarm. No dentist appointment.

"Awww, what's the joyous occasion?" you may ask.

Oh boy....I WISH it were a "joyous occasion" for my first major early-morning experience.

Instead, it was a nightmare that went something like this:

I am still living in LA but in a house that is identical to my grandma and grandpa's house in South Dakota. My entire family was over playing Nerts (happy face!!), when there's a knock at the door. It's an old friend, who for the sake of confidentiality we'll call Suzie and who in real life I'm not on speaking terms with. She had on a fall jacket, several suitcases in tow, and a certain stench about her that suggested she wasn't clean. And not in a she-needs-a-shower kind of clean, if you know what I mean. Immediately she starts mumbling stories about shopping trips and reasons how she ended up on my front stoop. Her last words, "....so can I crash here for a couple of weeks?"

pause

The words that escaped my mouth were an automatic sensory response and as soon as they left my lips I wanted them back, "Of couse, Suzie."

I asked how she got to my house from the airport, and she fumbled over some words that sounded like this, "I came to see my friend Tanya and we stopped the gas station, the one that is like the SuperAmerica back home, and Tanya had some things to do."

We went to the basement where my cousin Eric was. We all sat and talked for awhile, but Suzie could barely keep her head up. She popped up suddenly mid-conversation, ran over to where the stairs start, and knocked on the wall thinking it's the entrance to the bathroom. We all automatically started laughing (because it was funny lol), but then Suzie slumped to the floor. Her was hair covering her face, and the muscles in her arms and hands were cramped up making her limbs look deformed and her skin tone was turning blue.

I ran upstairs to find a phone, borderline panic. Should I call her mom or 911???

When I circled back through the kitchen in pursuit, Suzie had made it upstairs and was drinking water from the spout of the kitchen sink. Interrupting the person who was brushing his teeth. I stand there looking from her to him and back. He has a mouthful of foaming toothe paste, toothe brush in hand. Her head is buried in the sink. All I see is her hair.