Oops, I did it again....

Cried, that is.  Not boohooing or anything but tearing up so that I had to rush away to the restroom.  Again it was while I was working in registration and here's the story:
Registration opened Monday morning and we were swamped with people all day long waiting in line.  We were supposed to close at 5:00 in order to have time enough to make it to the opening ceremony.  At about 4:45 some French members came to register who had tried registering on-line but there credit cards were not accepted by our Paypal system and I sent them e-mails to inform them that they would have to pay when they got to Hammamet.  Well they came to the registration desk with the same credit cards that they tried using when they registered on-line and they wouldn't work.  They got so pissed off and they were yelling at me & Mary.  I tried to explain to them that there are some credit cards from Europe that have a chip in them for security reasons and they won't work in our U.S. Paypal system but they wouldn't listen.  They stood there arguing & yelling for almost 30 minutes.  I told them to use their credit cards at the ATM to get cash and they still wouldn't listen.  They finally left when we told them there was nothing we could do for them, we weren't going to sit there and listen to them yell and we were closing. 

The next morning here they come again to try the same credit cards.  Once again, they wouldn't work.  I guess some of them must've borrowed credit cards from others, some left, got cash and were able to complete their registration but this one guy got so mad I thought his head was going to pop.  By this time I had Nikki, a co-worker who speaks French to help out and she told him that he should be nice to me because it wasn't my fault.  When I finally completed his registration he said thanks to me.  I looked at him and said, "Thanks? ---- You could apologize".  Unfortunately, since he was French, he didn't think he was wrong and he walked away without saying another word. 

Later that morning, a woman from Turkey got really mad because people were butting in line by coming around to the end of the counter to my right.  I've learned over the years not to look at anybody but the person I'm registering because if I give anyone eye contact they will try to get me to wait on them.  While I was registering her I said, "I apologize for the line-cutting, I know you've been waiting a long time and it would make me angry, too".  That was when she started yelling at me and when I told her I couldn't control the people she said, "IT'S YOUR FAULT".  I replied, "Yes, everything's my fault"!  Then I got up & walked back to get her Congress bag and that's when I cracked.  My eyes started to fill and I knew that I wouldn't be able to hold it back.  I took extra-long getting the bag, asked Mary if she had a kleenex and when she saw that I was about to lose it she told me to go to the restroom which is what I did. 

Call me a baby if you want, but I can only take so much!  I guess I get emotional when I'm sleep-deprived.  I didn't think I'd have a problem with jet lag because the time difference is only 7 hours but I haven't gotten to sleep before midnight the whole time I've been here.  The first 5 days it took me well over an hour to fall asleep and part of the reason is that my room is on the corner of a building on the main walkway made of stone and the click-clack of high heels drove me crazy.  I've slept good the past couple of nights and registration has slowed down so I'll be fine.  

We always get a bonus after Congress for all the hard work we do.  This year I'm going to tell Edson I deserve a double bonus......