BECKY RICKARD: COLUMN A GENERIC OFFERING

During school, when I work one or two jobs and try to get all my homework done, I keep moaning about how there are never enough hours in the day. In truly desperate times, I have taken to bargaining with the powers that be: "One more day! Just toss in a thirty-six hour Wednesday and I'll be fine! Really! That's all I need!" Of course, this never happened when I needed it most, but my pleading must have been heard by someone, because this past August, I got more extra time than I ever bargained for.

During the second week of August, right before I was due to leave for a camping trip in Colorado, I came down with a horrible case of insomnia. I've always had trouble sleeping and didn't think anything about my first sleepless night. Hey, I love to camp; I was blowin' town- no wonder I was too excited to sleep.

But over the next few days, I realized something much more sinister was at work. I couldn't sleep at all. I was caught in the middle of a never-ending cycle of consciousness. Needless to say, I was not very happy about this turn of events. First of all, I like to sleep when I can. Secondly, I just had too much time on my hands. There are only so many nights a person can watch Nick At Night and TV Land without going over the edge. Oh, sure, I tried to expand my hobbies, do things I was always wishing I had time to do. But my roommates just did not appreciate my efforts to improve my rollerblading skills at three in the morning. (I had to practice in the dining room. Did they expect me to practice in the park at this ungodly hour?)

Just as my roommates were formalizing their plans to kill me, I left for New Mexico, from where I would continue on to Colorado. By this time, I hadn't had any sleep for two days, and by this time, I couldn't seem to shut up. I was feeling no pain, but the people who were driving with me to New Mexico were. The biggest danger, besides being tossed from a moving vehicle somewhere in Oklahoma, was that I was becoming bored with so much extra time on my hands.

This is never a good thing. In the past, boredom has led me down a wayward path. For example, I begin planning things (I like to call them "conceptual art pieces") that involve lingerie, Krazy Glue, a mannequin and a statue of The Patron Saint of Obscurity. Not only was I bored, but also insane. I had been up for three days-not by choice-and I was riding through the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles.

By the time I got to New Mexico, I wanted sleep- NOW!-and I was willing to do anything to get it. (Damn it, why didn't I bring articles on the economic structure of 18th-century Peru? It always worked when I had to read it for class.) On my third night of full consciousness, I was watching TV in the wee hours of the morning (my friends having convinced me that if I said "ONE WORD" to them between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., I could go not-sleep on a park bench somewhere, preferably in another time zone). By about 5 a.m., I was really desperate for sleep, but the end was not in sight, and I was wondering if I would ever sleep again. Right at that time, through some little-understood force called TV programming, I thought I found my answer-or at least someone who would give me my answer. Yes, the Psychic Hotline was offering "answers to all of life's questions." I called the number to see if any one of their "qualified psychics" could tell me when I was going to sleep next. I had trouble convincing the psychic that I could care less about romance, finances or career advancements.

"Just tell me: am I, or am I not - going to get some sleep within the next 24 hours?"

"Well, Joan, I sense that you are having difficulties choosing your career path, and...."

"Like it takes a psychic to figure that one out. And besides, I told you my name is Jill. You didn't have to guess at that one, and you still got it wrong. What the hell kind of psychic are you, anyway?"

Judging by the next month's phone