At 5:03 this afternoon, I had to turn on the lights around my desk so that I could keep working. There are reasons I was working at 5:03 on a Sunday afternoon. They might not be good reasons, but they’re mine and I claim full ownership. By 5:33 pm, it was pitch black out and the forest animals were peering in at me. Or so I imagine, since I couldn’t see out. I think we had a beautiful sunset, but it came and went so early that I saw only the last fading beams and couldn’t get mobilized in time to photograph it.

The real reason I was working, and the only one that counts, is payroll. Not everyone else’s paychecks. Mine. I did have the time cards, and I was writing all the checks, but mine is the only one that will get deposited tomorrow. The others won’t even get mailed until Tuesday, and I have to send them with a note telling Tim not to distribute them until he has the okay from me. Unless we get some money in this week, they’ll all bounce. Not mine, though. At least there’s some advantage to being the guy that writes the checks.

And the reason I was working that late on a Sunday was, well, because I didn’t do anything early in the day. The extra hour did me no good in the sleep department. I was up in time to watch the race this morning, but I spent most of the day bundled up in the recliner with a blanket over me. I think I even fell asleep a few times, which wasn’t what I had in mind. After the race I got moving, took a shower, got to work. Almost before I was fully awake, the shadows were getting long and it was starting to get dark.

If this had been a normal payroll week, I might have been finished by 5:03 pm. But there was overtime to deal with, and special onsite labor rates, and deadbeat dad deductions. If tomorrow weren’t the last day of the month, and if my rent weren’t due the next day, I probably would have blown off payroll today and tried to squeeze it into tomorrow. The only trouble with that scenario is that tomorrow is Monday. And it’s the last day of the month, and the last day to pay quarterly taxes. And the first “work” day since the time change.

So I’ll be going to the bank tomorrow and depositing the one check I wrote today that I know won’t bounce. And I’ll be paying my rent on time. The rest of the week is kind of up in the air. I have no idea what I’m going to do if no money comes in within the next few days. I really don’t. I’m on a pretty steep cliff here, and my balance is a little shaky.