jakorte's blog

Saturday, 4:30 am.

I hurt! Nothing like waking up to an entire body charley-horse. I know I’m not dehydrated, just muscle weary. I wanted to take some Motrin, but I decided I didn’t really want to move. 6:30 am, my bladder convinced me it was time.

I tried to be quiet: there were 8 other exhausted missionaries asleep within feet of me. Up until now, I’d been pretty stealthy about my nocturnal roaming. As I raised myself up, I heard sounds I’d never heard before.

It started out sounding like a newly milked bowl of Rice Crispies. Cute little pops in my shoulders and knees held an early morning she’s-got-to-be-kidding conference. The more I rose, the louder I got. My torso turned in to a Jiffy Pop concerto. My neck ended up sounding like the strings of mini-fireworks my dad used to light-up under empty tin cans. Sadly, I did not get that tin can “air-lift" to help me up.

There was a point during yesterday’s Spiritual Care journey, where my ankles simply refused to flex anymore. As we walked along, I’m sure I looked like the world’s shortest stilt-walker. The good news is that my ankles became true missionaries and flexed appropriately 12 hours later. The bad news is that although I couldn’t actually understand what they were saying, I’m pretty sure each reluctant ankle owes at least one buck-in-the-truck.

Once I made it to the restroom, everything went according to the law of nature and bathroom etiquette. Until, I tried to flush. Apparently gripping a stack of 50 note cards for a couple of hours affects your hand hold. Twice, my left hand slipped right off the flipper. The third time, I just used the pressure of both fists. That got the job done.

By the time I made it back to our sleeping sanctuary, I was determined to take that Motrin. The little pills rattled around in their container like a party-happy canasta, oblivious to my attempts not to make much noise. It turns out I really didn’t have to worry. Nobody stirred. I washed those tiny pills of hopeful salvation down with some warm, deflated Mt. Dew. Then, I crackled back down onto my pew. It’s now 7:20 am. I’ve got an hour before the 8:30 alarm. "Yup," I thought to myself, “Good luck with that."