First you cry, and then...you cry again.

I am so tired.

I am so tired!

I am soo tired.

I am sooo tired.

Soooo tired. Tired. So. Tired.

Sooooo veerrry tired.

Top ten reasons it took me until Thursday to write Tuesday's column?

1. I'm tired.

2. I am tired.

3. I am suffering from a serious lack of sleep.

4. I need to go to sleep rather than write things.

5. I need to go into a room and sleep.

6. I need to go to sleep.

7. I am so very tired.

8. Too tired to complete list.

Those wanting to know how verrry tirrred I am should refer to the following true story.

As I was getting my shit together for work last night, I couldn't find my work pants. I looked all around the floor of my room for my pants, but the pants? Did not appear.

This was more than I could handle. Between damn school and damn work and damn yelling, I had had enough. I just broke down and started to cry. And not just faint sobbing. We're talking all-out, fully formed, Tammy Faye-style tears. Tears so big they had their own tears. I collapsed on the carpet and bawled for a solid five minutes. Because I couldn't find my pants.

As I got up off the floor, I noticed my pants, right where my head had been. I used the pants as a pillow when I laid down to cry because I couldn't find my pants. I need help. Or sleep, maybe.

Sure, it's finals. Sure, any reasonable person would rather sit around coming up with new Lifetime movies (Not Without My State Representative starring Kelly Ripa with a special appearance by Merideth Baxter-Birney as the feisty, overworked maid) than go to class. Sure, those things are true, but just because they're true doesn't mean...anything, really.

I know that I only have four days left. I know we'll spend these four days reviewing and that I've probably taken all the tests there are to take, except for one. One more test. One more. One more test, for which I must study rather than sleep. One more hurdle, and then it's Unsolved Mysteries all the way through until January. Unsolved Mysteries and uncooked spaghetti, dipped in a jar of peanut butter.

I also know that every hurdle I clear just means more work. Every time I make a pizza, there is another pizza to make. Our government team won at regionals, but now we have to write a whole new essay for state (and three new essays if we win there). High school leads to college, college leads to sixteen-hour days at the office, life leads to death. Pass the Zoloft.

I have to go now. I have to go to work instead of going out tonight like I had planned, because life's a bitch and then you die. Because I'm nice. Because Slimjim bought me chicken last night if I'd work for him tonight. Because I'm a sucker for the right kind of chicken. Because I'm a nice person...sometimes. Because I'll have a miserable time tonight regardless of my location, so I might as well upset my co-workers rather than my friends. Because this week has been nothing but Emotional Saturdays. Bad ones.

Because no one will take me to Vegas and plant me square in front of a slot machine with a bucket full of quarters and cute waitresses constantly bringing me Diet Coke.

Have I apologized to you, Diet Coke? I'm sorry. I'm sorry we fought. I didn't mean all the things I said. I love you, Diet Coke. I do want to move in with you, and I can live with your cats. Let's never fight again, Diet Coke.

Thank God, though, that there are people like Remma around to shine the flashlight of hope down the tunnels of my darkest days. Thanks for calling me last night, Remma. Remma is the bomb-diggity.

I seriously have to go now, not so much because I am late, but because I just typed the word(s) 'bomb-diggity' in total seriousness.

Who needs sleep? I need sleep. I. Need. Sleep.

Sleep.