I don’t think I’m cut out for big business. The constant human interaction frightens and confuses me. I can’t even get the business expressions right: A bird in the hand is probably dead, but not worth quite as much as a bush or two. Err — A closed mouth gathers no foot, but makes it very hard to eat a sandwich. The early bird gets the worm, and dysentery, probably. This is why I quit business school; I failed my business expressions class, and never recovered.

Even though I flunked spectacularly and dropped out of business school, I still managed to get a job in a rather large office building. It didn’t last long, because I kept stealing printers, and swiping boxes of plastic utensils from the break room, but it was worth it.

Before I was caught stealing the entire break-room fridge and unceremoniously sacked, I came very close to getting fired for my tardiness. I would routinely show up for work two hours late, and that would make my boss furious. I wasn’t very pleased with it either, but I have an excuses. I rarely slept in those days, because sleep is for the weak and misguided. Sleep is death practice, and I’m not ready to cash in my chips yet. I didn’t sleep for so long that it completely reworked my sleep-cycle. I would be fine all day, but early in the morning a weird form of narcolepsy would kick in, and I would collapse into a snoring heap no matter where I was. This became a problem, because I would routinely sleep through my alarms and arrive late for work.

I honestly tried to fix my sleep patterns, but they were too far gone. I couldn’t sleep on my own accord anymore, my body had completely overridden my ability to go to sleep naturally. I was obviously unfit to make the decision, so the rest of my body decided when it needed sleep and went for it.

Naturally, I explained all of this to my boss, and he was less than sympathetic. He thought I was making it all up, which is always a possibility, but in this case I was sort of telling the truth. Instead of arguing with him, I decided I would be better off seeing a sleep specialist.

The sleep specialist wasn’t as special as his name would suggest. He looked a lot like a normal doctor to me, but I’m very impressionable. He could have just been a hobo in a white coat and I wouldn’t have noticed, or cared. He prescribed some special pills to right my sleeping patterns, and advised me to go home and get some rest. I told him that it was none of his damn business what I did when I got home, but I thanked him for the medication. Never turn down free drugs of any kind; it’s immensely rude, and drugs are expensive.

I didn’t think much of the pills at first. I went home and took the recommended dosage, and then another recommended dosage, and then another recommended dosage, and then washed that down with a quart of absinth — just to be sure.

I don’t really know what happened that night. I remember going to bed at a reasonable time, staring at the ceiling for a while, and then drifting off into the most restful sleep I’ve ever had. It felt like I was sleeping for ages, and it was wonderful. I woke up feeling completely refreshed. Not only did I get a proper night’s sleep; I beat the alarm clock by two hours. This was the first morning in a while that I took my time getting dressed. I put a tie on, brushed my teeth, ate food, and everything. It felt brilliant. I waltzed into work five minutes early, and plopped myself down at my desk.

My boss was absolutely shocked to see me, and immediately came rushing over. I looked up at him and proudly proclaimed, “Looks like the pills worked like a charm. I feel great, I look great, and I finally got to work on time. ”

My boss gave me a rather perplexed look, nodded a bit, and then said, “Yeah, kid, that’s great, but where the hell where you last week!”