Survivor - Game Convention

I sat down at the table. Monday 9:AM. Some sorta Super-Hero game. I'd arrived at the convention Friday afternoon after working an early A.M. shift to get to the convention early. I gamed all the way through Friday night. Then I played all day Saturday and clean through Saturday night. Hold on. I then used liquid caffeine (tea and soda - not No-Doze which was very popular at the time) and highly sugared snackage to pull me through Sunday AND Sunday night.

So when I sat down to be Super, I'd been awake for something like 75 hours. Gotta tell ya, I felt a little greyish-green and not entirely on this planet, but I was really getting the most out of the convention - really!

As the game went on, I began to slump in my chair. An hour into it my eyes were even with the table top. The GM was using Cardboard Cutout Heroes - full color 2D miniatures. I was listening to the GM describe some new villain who had come to mash us when the drawing on my Cardboard Cutout moved. That's right. He freakin' MOVED. He actually took a couple of steps and looked at me. I responded by blinking and looking around to see if anyone else had noticed this break with reality. No one had. In fact they were continuing on, but they seemed to be sorta far away - their voices muffled.

I sat up straight, bumped the table and knocked over several of the cardboard heroes. With a bit of trepidation I reached out and set my figure upright. He didn't move. I apologized and quickly drained another (now warm) caffeinated beverage. It did - exactly nothin'. Within minutes I was back to slumpin'. And then the cardboard feak moved AGAIN. He turned and looked at me in a hands-on-hips disapproving way. Okay, sleep deprived, it took only two visits from the cardboard gods of hallucination for me to get the message. Go get some sleep. Damn. This was going to be the last game of the convention and I was going to sleep through it.

I made my apologies to the GM, told him I'd been up all night and staggered to the hotel room my friends and I were using as gamer command central. Once there, I passed out like a drunken sailor, or pirate, or some other colorful character. I awoke when housekeeping showed up and booted me out for being there past checkout time.

I remember all of about 10 seconds of the drive home. I recall leaving the hotel. I recollect lurching awake as my car left the freeway bearing down on a pair of sturdy trees and an even sturdier boulder. I swerved back on the road, convinced that the adrenaline would keep me awake for the 1/2 hour remaining of my drive. I don't remember a minute of it, but somehow I got home.

Lucky me. I got home. Stupid me. I pushed too far for the fun and bragging rights. These days I stay at the hotel and get sleep every night. I remember games and more important, I come back year after year instead of slamming into unforgiving boulders. Be safe y'all.