Day 196: Election Day

It's Election Day. For most that means a trip to the polling place or watching election coverage on the news to see if their favorite politician or proposition will win.

For me, it means a 14... possibly 15 hour day.

I think I've mentioned a few times the past few days that I'm alone at work and that means a lot of extra work and stress on me.

Why I agreed to do this today is beyond me and I can't seem to stop talking about it.

Blah blah blah.... I'm alone, no help, have to work late. Everyone has to work late, everyone has a long day, what makes me that much different?

Ok so my circumstances were worse than the rest, they at least had backup and a support team behind them. That's something I didn't have.

But instead of just keeping my mouth shut and working, I felt the need to tell everyone I could about it. I was the martyr. Everyone look at me, I'm hard at work... yay for me.

Once I got to my designated location it was great to see some of my former work buddies, and hang with a few new ones too.

Honestly, I get a little intimidated in those situations. I'm super confident producing a show inside the station. You could throw me pretty much anything and I could handle it.

I would say you could throw anything at me and I could handle it, but we live in an age of 9/11 and I have to say that would be one I couldn't handle. I would do my best to try, but some things are too overwhelming.

Tonight I am a little out of my element. I don't know the candidates, and I certainly don't know what to ask them. I hate feeling uninformed.

I'm a producer, I like to be prepared, it's what we do.

But somehow, some way like it's instinctual we fall back into it as if it's part of our DNA.

I was running around pulling parts of interviews and giving our reporters the information they needed to keep our viewers updated.

Toward the end of the night I was tired, and all I could think about was being at home on the couch relaxing.

At one point I saw a guy walking past with a Heineken and I wanted to rip it out of his hand and chug it! But I figured that might be frowned upon, so I refrained.

Once we were done, I took a few of my co-workers back to the station. Putting the top down on the car was a welcome relief for the night, but it wasn't enough.

Even though it was 11:30 I needed a beer. The Heineken got into my brain and I couldn't get it out. I decided to stop at the convenience store on the way home and pick up some beer.

I would have been fine with just the beer, but I had also convinced myself I was hungry. So it was on to stop number 2... Wendy's.

I was hoping for a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and baked potato, and ended up with the burger and fries. I guess you have to make some sacrifices in life.

There was one more stop and that was home. On the drive I could hear the beer bottles hitting each other... tink... tink... tink... like Tinkerbell! I had to laugh to myself.

They were calling my name, of course I know better, but I really wanted to grab one out of the back seat and start drinking one on the 5 minute drive to my house.

I refrained. But once I got home, all bets were off! I quickly opened a beer and satisfied my craving for comfort food.