Altercation
When the day comes this year that you lurch from your bed, breathless and terrified at the weight of life, not to mention the stresses of university, Stop. Breathe. And see the bigger picture. Everything will be okay.
Photo: Tim Andries
A week before school started I drove south to Oregon, to see family and friends. My hope had been to start the seven-hour trip sometime after lunch. 7p.m., while being sometime after lunch, was certainly later than when I had intended to leave.
Now, I make this trip often and I know my driving limits. When I feel tired, I stop. No questions. So at four hours into the trip when that familiar wave of exhaustion hit, I pulled over. I ordered my Beefy 5-Layer burrito from Taco Bell and downed a Red Bull from 7-11. It’s a magic combination libel to give most people severe intestinal problems; however, with time I’ve become more-or-less immune and now don’t make the trip without either the burrito or syrupy sugar rush.
Unfortunately, this time my magic combo let me down. I wasn’t another mile into the trip before my eyes fluttered and my mind commanded, “Sleep!” I listened this time but unfortunately I had only just passed a rest stop so I resorted to sleeping at the next exit regardless. It was Chehalis—not my favourite town of the 600km trip, but it would do.
I pulled off the interstate. There was a Wal-Mart on my left and for a second I considered sleeping there but the lights were too bright. And personally, while I find shopping at the megastore generally distasteful, sleeping at one crosses a line for me. So I pulled into the parking lot on my right instead. And as if God himself had lit the florescent beacon, the store sign “Sleep Country” shown directly above my now parked vehicle. My truck was only 30 meters from the street but nestled away enough so as to assure that I wouldn’t be bothered. Everything was perfect.
I set my alarm for 45 minutes. I slept for three hours. It was now 2 a.m. and I was fully unconscious. What was initially intended as a “cat nap” had become complete “fetal-position REM sleep,” and I had no intention of waking.
The Chehalis city police officer, on the other hand, had different intentions. Keep in mind, my face was pressed, absolutely smothered against the window, my knees were tucked into my chest, and my mind was so deep in dreams that it would have been another four hours before I would have woken of my own volition.
But with a government issued Mag Lite, his fist pounding on my door, and his voice yelling, “What are you doing in there?” the officer quickly woke me. So quickly in fact, that I reacted very much in the same way that an individual awoken while sleep walking might react.
I screamed. Three times in fact. The first two times, I was entirely unaware that I was screaming. But the third time I recognized that the terrified, emasculated scream was my own. And with the light shining in my eyes it was several seconds before I realized where I was or who was yelling at me or that there was even a car door between us. I was lost, in a total void of white terror, and alone.
But apparently I wasn’t the only one startled in the situation because as I lurched from REM sleep to total hysteria, the police office himself jumped back in shock and while keeping his flashlight in my eyes placed his other hand on his firearm.
At this point, while my heart was considering a total shutdown, I was being questioned as to why I was screaming at a police officer, which allowed me to begin to piece together my situation. I frantically started to apologize. I repeated over and over, “You’ve scared me! You’ve scared me!”
The officer cracked a smile, turned, and chuckled at the realization of what just occurred. I did not chuckle with him.
He asked for my identification. I rolled my window down a quarter of an inch and slid my I.D. to him. The officer started explaining that the Sleep Country I was parked in front of and the Money Mart behind me had both been robbed several times which is why he came by to check on my vehicle.
I assured him that I had no interest in robbing either location and that in fact I had been in the fetal-position because I was sleeping, not because I was attempting to hide.
We each went our separate ways and, needless to say, I was fully awake for the rest of the drive.
Sometime in this coming year life will wake you up late at night and yell in your face, “What are you doing?!” And you will respond with an emasculated and unfettered shriek. Why? Because you have no idea where you are, what you’re doing, or how you got there. My only advice: take a deep breath and do your best to convince life not to shoot you in the face.
University is a tough place and at some point you will have a moment of total panic. We all do. We all wonder if we’re cut out for this, if we’re in the right field of study, and if we’re really going to make it. At those moments, take a deep breath and connect with someone who’s been there, with a professor who understands, or with a counselor who is willing to listen and put things in perspective. This university offers a number of great resources for making your four years here manageable. Go upstairs in the Reimer student centre and visit the Success Centre, or go to the Wellness Centre and ask to schedule an appointment with a counselor, or go get some help putting that paper together in the Writing Centre in Douglas.
So take that breath and settle down. Step back from the gravity of the moment and remember to see the bigger picture. We’re in this together. Everything will be okay.
Michael Biornstad
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