Functioning on 3.5 hours of sleep

Holy crap last night was brutal. In case you missed it, or just flat-out don't freaking care, Arkansas, west Tennessee, and middle Tennessee got punched in the mouth with an April storm. Except it was in January.

Anytime they give you 12 hours notice of a bad storm in Tennessee, you can pretty much count on it happening. So after church (and Cracker Barrel, where I caved to no pressure whatsoever and got the Chicken Fried Chicken Chicken Fried Chicken), I took a nap - a weird one in which, for some reason, I was completely hammered on Zima, and trying to hide it from Kami. I needn't worry in the dream, because I had been offered a job talking baseball on a local radio station. And Kami was driving to Corpus Christi with Bernie Taupin, anyway. That was a nuts dream.

After watching both football games, Kami was fading. I told her to go to bed. Of course, if I tell her to do something, she will refuse, even if it kills her. So I quickly rephrased, reminding her that she is growing a human, and that's her mommy duty. I'm the daddy, and it's daddy duty to make sure that nobody gets crushed by the roof caving in from a January tornado.

At 11:30, I settled in with the weather on, Black Dog under my feet, and a book (The Accidental Billionaires - fantastic). I waited. Watching purple weather march across the state is disconcerting. Even more disconcerting was the warning from the National Weather Service, which read (word-for-word):
"NIGHTTIME TORNADOES ARE ESPECIALLY DANGEROUS SINCE DARKNESS MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO SEE THEM. IN ADDITION...IT IS THE TIME WHEN MOST PEOPLE ARE THINKING OF GOING TO BED."

The NWS had gently, and I know it was gentle because of the All-Caps, informed everyone that because it was dark, and we are asleep, that is why we will die. I put my book down, and just watched the slow march of weather death.

At about 1:50am, the word came for eastern Davidson County to get to a safe place, so I grabbed Angus, woke Kami, who grabbed Gunther, and we headed to the bathroom. Ultimately, nothing bad happened - in Nashville, anyway. But the fact was, I was going to bed at 2:30, and our alarm was going off at 5:30.

We hit snooze until about 6:00am when we just had to get up. Three and a half hours of sleep. I could barely talk. I had that rubber-legged, jacked gut feeling that comes with having very little sleep. I drank three cups of coffee, watching SportsCenter on mute. Kami told me if I had anything with sugar, I would crash, and it would not be pretty - I would either fall asleep on my desk and possibly drown in my own drool, or I would break a butterfly knife off in somebody's chest.

Still, on the way to work, I drank an energy drink and got the lovely feeling that I had battery acid running through my veins - and I had not yet arrived at work.

So how did I function on three-and-a-half hours of sleep? Fairly well, thank you very much. I did not yell at anyone (breathing exercises, remember). I did not hit an inanimate object. Everything went alright. Of course, if I counted backwards from ten I wouldn't get to nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn