Interview with a (wanna be) Vampire

     Last Sunday, I thought it would be a brilliant idea, to take the family someplace fun for the day. It was one of those rare days when we were all together at the same time, and the weather was going to be decent.
     The kids were given several options for places to go, and the beach was chosen pretty much across the board. This sounded like lots of fun, and we headed to Sunset Bay, our favorite beach, about an hour and a half away. Shortly before leaving, I saw one of the kids had dug the sunblock out of the beach supplies, and told said child repetedly, to put it back.
     Fast forward an hour and a half, and, the previously mentioned child casually mentions the sunblock is on the dinning room table at home. That's okay, though. The entire beach is littered with half naked bodies lying around, like there had been a massive shipwreak full of scantily clad teenagers nearby. I could work with this. Instead of being this pasty albino person, I would just lie out and get a little color. It's been forever, since I had anything more than a "Farmer's Tan". How nice. A whole afternoon of lying around doing nothing.
     How absolutely boring. I left my book in the truck, several blocks away. I couldn't focus in the sun, to see my sand covered phone screen very well, and, how on earth did all these people just LIE there for hours and hours? What if, they were all dead? Or needing medical attention? They didn't move! If I had a body like these girls, I would have totally wouldn't have been lying face down in the sand for 4 hours. Beauty is wasted on the young.
     So, using this amazing imagination I have been blessed with, I pretended I looked like that, and layed out like everyone else. Getting up and doing the whole frolic in the water with the kids thing, every once in awhile.
     This was very nice, until my back and shoulders suddenly began to feel like I was getting stung by a million bees, while getting beaten with a wet towel. Home we headed, leaving all the bodies still lying on the beach. It didn't make the news, so, evidently they all eventually came to life and wandered away.

     Within 20 miles of home, it was becoming difficult to breathe. It felt like a large boulder was on my chest. And the sunburn was REALLY painful. And I could feel my heart beating a million miles an hour. Hell.
     By bedtime, I was so cold I couldn't bear it, in 90 degree weather, my heart was still beating crazily, and I was sick. Total sun poisoning. And, that color I was so thrilled about getting? Forget nice little touch of sun, and go right toward 'roasted on a spit over a pit placed someplace in hell' leaving ridiculous lines that will probably never fade, and forever assure that this Mama will never have topless pics taken.
     A friend of mine is an RN, and happened to text me that evening. She informed me I needed to get to the ER immedietly. Dehydration and all that.

     "No." I shook my head. "I cannot go to the hospital; I have an interview at work tomorrow." And, that was that. I HAD to go to work and make that interview! It was for a position with normal hours, way closer to home, and would be PERFECT for family life! No more going days and days without seeing my kids! I NEEDED to make this interview.

     Morning dawned, and I was in rough shape. I could not lift my arms, I could not tolerate water spraying on me in the shower, I could not do my hair, I looked absolutely awful; my hair frizzy,  my face red and shiny, my eyes red. I could hardly think, let alone speak in cohearant sentances. But, I was determined. I could totaly do this. And, off I went. Drinking lots and lots of Gatoraid, and downing Tylenol on the way.

     By interview time, I was feeling somewhat better. Checking the miserable hair, and applying lipgloss to the sunburned lips, (that looked like a cross between a red kool-aid musctache, botox gone bad, and chapped lips...) trying to order my face to look pale and not shiney, and trying to make myself walk like a human, and not Frankenstien, due to the intensely painful nature of the sunburn, I was off. I could do this. Right?

     Wrong. I tried so hard, to look like a normal human being. There was a panel of 3 people asking me a total of 10 questions, and my brain totaly did not want to work at warp speed. My brain was moving along the lines of Federal Government Speed. As in, 'I will get the answers to your questions back to you in an expidated manner, approximately 2-6 months from now' speed.
    Some of the queastions, I had amazing answers to! YES! I got this! Even with sun poisoning, I got this! HA!!
     Other questions, all I could picture in my head was blank white wall, blank sheets of paper, an endless sky of nothingness. I couldn't think of one inteligent word to save my life. I could see Meg Ryan, in "You've got Mail", typing away, and saying, "Nothing. Even hours later, I still have nothing!" I was so there. And, in all my delerious awesomeness, I could hear myself begin to babble.

     "Okay. Well. Hmmm. I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for specificaly with this question. Ummm. Well. There was this time when I - no no. That isn't it. Umm. Well! There was this OTHER time when. No, that's not it, either. Okay. Here's the thing. You want to know specific details of specific problems I have solved. Who thinks about these things?! Every day there are problems, and I solve them! It's part of the job! It's what we DO!"

     3 sets of eyebrows raised, and 3 people carefully set thier pens down, and I just knew I had just lost any chance at that position. I began to try to mentaly talk myself out of why that was okay though. I liked my current job, and co-workers and the drive on nice days, and what I do, and all the time off I get and being able to somewhat control what days I work....

     They told me I would know the results next week. And I left. Berating myself for the irresponsible stupidness of lying on a beach in peak sun burn hours with the body of a vampire. I'm a nurse! I know better! I am a Mom! I REALLY know better! What the hell was my problem? Of all the things to do the day before an interview! Nice going, Moriah. You rock.

     Two days later, first thing in the morning, I got the call: THE POSITION WAS MINE!!! How that happened, I will never know. I was sure I hadn't a prayer. Anyway, I start September 8.

     Pretty much, That's it. It's all I can think about since I got the call. That, and the sunburn. It's been miserable. But I have decided to live. I may or may not have gone all "Water Boy" on my kids, and told them the sun was obviously The Devil, but, they are young and resiliant. I am sure they will forget it eventually.