The night before the last day

I didn't know my last day in Baton Rouge would be the next day. So, I'll back up and tell you how it turned into the last day.

By telling you the day before the last day.

My last post while in Baton Rouge was one of being incredibly tired. I lay awake all night thinking I'd contracted typhoid because I was sweating -- all night. As it turned out, they were just adjusting the air conditioning and on top of that, they'd gotten to capacity in the tents.

I did have a respiratory infection starting, but at the root of it was exhaustion. When I finally saw the doctor--who, I swear, was an angel, but I think that was my fever--she said I was suffering from exhaustion and she didn't want to discharge me from the infirmiry. Now, who, I ask you, wants to say they came to work at a disaster and got "exhaustion." How lame does that sound?

So, I left the infirmary and returned to Buddy's phone list, only to return to the infirmary two hours later because I practically fell down on my keister. So, they made me lay down and listen to some really annoying new age music, and halfway into my "nap" (I could not relax and there were some guys on DMORT talking in the next cubicle and that was distracting), or about half an hour later, the nurse came and told me I had to leave because the building was being evacuated. No need to tell me twice, I got up and joined the line of people getting the hell out of there.

Out in the parking lot, I saw Rick, and we went looking for Brian and Bridger, who were in Brian's air conditioning. It was about 110 degrees out there. We found them and decided to take a little drive because there was no way we were getting back into the building any time soon.

Hey, let's go see some of Baton Rouge! We were excited for about thirty seconds, but Rick was so anal about sticking around for one of his endless conference calls, that we couldn't go far (love ya, Ricky :) ) and also, there was nothing to see on our part of town but lots of boarded up buildings and sad faces.

But, what was that blinking ahead in the distance? Could it be... a Burger King? We pulled into the BK for some cokes. While in line, I excused myself to go to the ladies.

In stall one was a BK employee, sitting on the stall, smoking a cigarette while talking on the phone. Ok. In stall two, no toilet paper. I ask the smoking lady for some, and she hands me a slightly sodden handful of paper. Yuuckkkk. I turn around to wash my hands and the sink is full of VOMIT.

There is no health department. No one cares. The woman gets up and leaves without washing her hands. (how could she?). I leave and tell the guys--we have got to get out of here. They complain. They want their cokes. They didn't see it. Please don't tell them. Everyone is tired. No one has the energy to be disgusted.

This, my friends, is America also.