At some point my six year old is going to fall over. The others will follow soon after, tiny hands relaxing as their bodies tumble to the ground they were walking on moments before. Bystanders will walk around them at first, some offering shocked or chagrined expressions as they watch me watching them and trying to figure out what to do. After a while the crowd will decide to walk over them. Maybe later someone will come along and scoop them up and slide them against a wall where their sleep will be more acceptable. I won’t be able to do it myself because a few minutes after the last child cascades into slumber I too will fall knees first into a heap on the new Phoenix Convention Center carpet and lay there into a wheelbarrow is procured to cart my away.
It occurs to me that it has always been this way. I remember days where I walked nearly the entire length of Manhattan and returned home with little or no fatigue to show for my effort. Yet a day at Comicon and we are all so heavily fatigued that the passing out scenario actually sounds like a good way to go–at least we’d still be at Comicon.
The fatigue appears to be a byproduct of mental exhaustion. Walking around Manhattan doesn’t drain the mind the way wrangling three kids at a comic book convention does…
Some Thoughts:
- Not much to say about 1850. Tennyson took his turn as British poet Laurate. It’s kind of a big deal.