It started out encouraging. The first hour was a review of the sales material that I have tried to familiarize myself with for the past few weeks. With a bowl of oatmeal in the tank I thought I had the perfect amount of energy to make it through to lunch, but not be too full that I would sabotage my efforts at being alert and attentive. The class got underway and I was feeling steady like the orchestra backing Ray Charles on Georgia on my mind, a very even tempo that I felt like I could sustain and keep going at least until the first break. The disc jockey in my head had other ideas, changing to a more somber Born Under a Bad Sign.
I was hearing Jimi, but I was becoming uneasy now, not at all comfortable with somber mood of this selection. To combat the fatigue that was taking over, I shifted nervously in my chair, first crossing my left foot over to rest on my right knee, then switching about a minute later. I put my feet on the floor and tried to sit up straight as Jimi played over the very sinister, bluesy baseline. In an all out panic now, picked up my pen and prepared to write some notes. When Led Zeppelin's Dazed and Confused came on, I was done for, struggling for the coordination to write down a not so key point and to make it legible. Instead of letting the song ride out into the fade, the DJ must've pulled the plug, as the song slurred to a close right along with my eyelids. I made a valiant effort to jerk my head back and regain my composure, but I was going under faster than Mr. Bopinsiero with all that weight dragging him down after Tony and the boys tucked him in to sleep with the fishes. At last it was break time and I knew precisely what I had to do.
Charting a direct course toward the break room I had one thing on my mind. Black coffee. No sugar, no cream. There was enough for one last cup in the pot that someone had made earlier. I sucked it down like it contained the antidote for the life threatening affliction from which I was suffering. I felt the life flowing back into me upon tasting this magical elixir. I had to have another cup. Not being a regulary coffee drinker, I couldn't begin to tell you exactly how to brew another pot of coffee. I studied it for a moment. I looked in the drawer near the coffee pot and saw some filters and a package of Starbucks Decaf blend. I had no use for that. Tossing it aside, I rummaged through the drawer until I found some high octane Folgers. Opening the top of the coffee maker,as I had seen others do before, I noticed that there was what looked like a perfectly functional filter and the remnants of the previous batch's grounds. I poured the Folgers right over the other stuff, and briefly second guessed myself, but it was too late now. I started to pour the water right on those grounds in that filter. Luckily, I noticed the proper place for that water before allowing too much to spill into this rather tattered looking filter. Then I waited. I watched the dark drops, now resembling crude oil and smelling not at all like the wonderfully roasted scents that emanate from java houses the world around. Eyes widening and mouth watering as the drops chimed like Pavlov's bell as they hit the bottom of the pot, I felt my senses coming alive. I grabbed three packets of sugar as the class began to assemble back in the conference room signaling the end of the break, and returned to my seat armed and dangerous. As I sipped between the billows of steam that rose out of the plastic cup, I could hear the scratchiness of the needle hitting the vinyl of a tune that I could not yet make out. My left foot caught the rhythm and began to tap on the floor right on beat with the pen in my right hand. Like a jetliner just cleared for takeoff, I began to pick up speed as the pace quickened into Dizzy Gillespie's Salt Peanuts, and just as Jim Carrey's Chip Douglas, adorned in that ridiculous mustache and the Frank Poncharello CHiPs sunglasses became a hurricane of fists and backhands in his minor assault on the very self absorbed Owen Wilson in the Cable Guy, I began to furiously jot down everything that the instructor wrote down.
By the time Donald Byrd's Street Lady rang out, I had little need for the backrest as I now sat at attention on the edge of my chair. I could feel the energy start to subside a bit, like the smooth clarinet that settles in after Dave Brubeck's lively introduction in Rondo A la Turk, but we were almost at lunch so I knew that the judges could not help but score the 2nd round in my favor when we headed to our corners, Fatigue and I.
After lunch, kept him at bay for a few more rounds. A couple of assorted deli sandwich halves in my belly now, I switched to the Mocha flavored, 9.5 oz bottles of Starbucks Iced coffee now, and it's a good thing because Fatigue's home court advantage kicked in even more as the heater started to warm the narrow conference room. Like William Wallace and his band of Scotsmen in Braveheart, I fought valiantly as a warrior poet (whatever that is, but it sounds good when Mel Gibson says it in the narration that wraps up that epic film).
As we moved into the later rounds I no longer resembled a finely tuned fighting machine, but more like Apollo Creed stumbling around as a barely ambulant Rocky Balboa delivered insanely severe blows to his midsection, repeatedly lifting him off the ground. If I had a mirror, I'm sure I would've seen eyes as red as cherry tomatoes, bugging out of a countenance resembling that of Bill the Cat, the half-baked, ex-rockstar cat from the old Bloom County comic strip. Retention of any more of the days lessons was no longer an option. Saving face in front of the customers also in attendance and not making the instructor feel as though he had a hand in boring me to a near comatose state was all that I clung to at that point.
At last it was over and I walked around the building a few times before getting in the car to drive home. I had survived day one, but would come to find out the hard way that a bladder full of highly caffeinated beverages and bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic do not a good mix make.
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