Sunday, March 4, 2012

Re-run Sunday: Take two naps, call me in the morning


Ah, naps, one of the top two things there is to do in bed. I wrote this in May 2010 and have only grown in my support of regular human napping. It's maybe the one realm where people should emulate cats.

I hope you get some nap time today. Encourage someone cuddly to join you.

Tomorrow's post will deal with just how contraception managed to become controversial.


One of the most wonderful things to do in bed or on a desk in the afternoon is once again being disparaged by Type-A personalities, the same people who continue to find speedier and speedier ways to screw up this godforsaken world.

And I’m not talking about sex, which needs no defending from the likes of me. Types-A through Z love sex and are having it all the time all over the place. They have nooners in cheap hotels, handy closets and right out in the open and I’m all for it.

So is practically everybody else. We all enjoy a good romp and can agree that the more time people spend drilling each other the less time they’ll spend drilling things like deep sea oil wells so that’s a net positive.

What I’m talking about is another basic human act that can leave you feeling as refreshed as you do after sex without all the emotional entanglements, the texted lies to suspicious spouses or weeks of worry about exotic social diseases that’ll leave you feeling anything but sociable.

I’m talking about the nap, the doze, the 40 winks.

In some hard-charging corporate centers, office drunks get more understanding than anyone who’d dare to nap during company time.

And please don’t mistake that easy example for a bash on office drunks. I support them, too. In fact, it’s hard to find a human vice I don’t encourage in others or nurture in myself.

Napping is in the news because this week two high profile baseball figures have been exposed as on-the-job nappers.

Teammates of Seattle Mariners great Ken Griffey Jr. tattled to reporters that Griffey was unable to pinch hit one recent game because he was napping in the clubhouse. And doesn’t “pinch hit” sound like a fast escalating sequence of violence from someone with anger management issues?

And, hilariously, Keith Hernandez, a former New York Met great, “Seinfeld” guest and a team announcer, is making the YouTube rounds after being caught on camera napping while he was -- shhhh! -- broadcasting a game.

This, of course, led to predictable howls of snide humor at the expense of a game that’s always being bullied by freakish numbskulls devoted to professional football.

If Major League Baseball had any sense it would promote its games as a great place to nap. I’ve enjoyed napping during many baseball games. Heck, as a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates, now in their 18th consecutive year of losing baseball, I’ve napped through many seasons.

I’ve become a nap aficionado in the last few years because of the little sleep bandit that lives across the hall. Like her sister before her, she comes unbidden into our room in the wee small hours, snuggles in between my wife and I, and spends the rest of the night kicking me in places no man likes to be kicked.

On top of that, once I’m awakened, my mind is off and running. I start thinking about why it seems I’m doomed to be broke. I think about great rounds of golf I’ve shot and courses I’d like to play. And I think about the thing I’ve thought about ever since I was 14 and I was surprised to learn there are things to do in beds other than doze.

I haven’t had a good night’s sleep ever since.

Just the other night, I had a romantic dream about my lovely wife. Really, it was great. Very fulfilling. But then I woke up angry that dream Rachel McAdams had blown me off.

Bitch.

What, is dream me not good enough for dream her?

So given all this, it would probably be wise for a guy like me to lay down for extended stretches on a psychiatrist’s couch.

But that’s not for me.

Naps are. I’m trying to build in a little nap time into any day when I feel a refresher is needed. Studies show that power nappers experience benefits in both the mind and body. It worked for renown nappers like Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Maybe it’ll work for me. Maybe it’ll help turn my floundering career around. Maybe I’ll be an inspiration to sleep-deprived scores of others who’ll follow my lead.

I’ll be Johnny Nappleseed!

But that all sounds pretty ambitious for a sleep-deprived guy like me.

First, I need to make time for a little slumber siesta.

I hope stuck-up dream Rachel McAdams isn’t too busy for an afternoon quickie.

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