Sunday naps are not worth it.
This may surprise you.
The pleasure of the nap is a facade.
A mask to hide a hideous, writhing, scarred nasty face that kidnaps you and eats your hopes and dreams while dancing on the graves of your ancestors.
The nap is stealthy; regardless of how many times you realize that the nap is a bad idea, and however many times you try to befriend it, it will only give you unhappiness and discombobulation, it somehow continues to convince you to try it out.
You think "oh, I'm tired enough this time, it's going to be awesome." or "maybe this time, things will be different. I just need to shut my eyes for a brief fairy-wink of a second..."
And then you end up sleeping for five consecutive hours and have wasted your entire day.
NAP EXPECTATION:
That burning feeling in your eyes is relieved as they gently close, blocking out the harsh rays of the cruel sun. You drift gently, and angel babies, their wings made of the softest down, descend dreamily, singing with gilded voices lost lullabies written by the elves of Middle Earth. They stroke your hair, and you are floating, then resting on a bed made of air. You rock back and forth with a gentle breeze, and drift off into a peaceful sleep, dreaming of attractive men and faraway places. Unicorns whinny in the distance, and perhaps Dumbledore from the first two movies shows up to read you fairytales with his little quiet whisper voice. You then awaken an hour later, completely refreshed and ready to go on with your day. You feel awesome. You feel like you were resting in downy dryer sheets and your whole soul has been purified. Those angel babies bid you farewell, congratulate you on your successful napping, and wish you luck as you decide to finish all of the things that you were too lazy to do before. This is YOUR time.
NAP REALITY:
Your eyes are burning, and sure, closing them sure does soothe that sensation. Unfortunately, that gentle drift into a peaceful, gentle slumber, sure does not come. You try for about ten minutes to sleep, but your brain is like "lol, no." So you open your eyes, sit up, and try to do something. But NO. The nap is a jealous boyfriend who really isn't doing anything for you, but just won't let you go. Although you're too awake to sleep, you're also far too tired to be awake. So you close your eyes again, and the descent into dreamland feels like you're tumbling down the stairs of Cirith Ungol, except there are a lot more boulders and pointy bushes and Shelob runs out and attacks about every five minutes. At some point, Gollum may succeed in biting off your finger. When you finally reach your destination: sleep, you have thoroughly unexciting dreams about shopping or work, and are woken up about 2.5 million times as your siblings do their absolute best to re-enact the Hunger Games. Your slumber is interrupted by intermittent war cries and arguments, and you decide they are trying to learn how to break dance.
Every time you are woken up, you decide you've had enough. You try to struggle out of the cold grasp of the nap, but with hands like that black goo that crawled out of the meteorite in Spider Man 3, it convinces you that you need some more sleep and drags your brain back down.
You wake up five hours later with a burning headache and a stuffy nose. You aren't sure which millennium you've drifted into. Maybe the zombies have eaten your friends. Maybe you live on Mars now. You feel all stiff and painful and sore and STILL TIRED. The nap has betrayed you.
This is the day, brothers and sisters, that I vow to never take the dreaded nap again. Not only did it leave me feeling thoroughly UNrefreshed, it forced me to lie awake until three last night while visions of the slumber that I wasn't having danced through my head. Exhaustion has turned me into a rage beast. Who knows when or who I will strike. Just be prepared.
This may surprise you.
The pleasure of the nap is a facade.
A mask to hide a hideous, writhing, scarred nasty face that kidnaps you and eats your hopes and dreams while dancing on the graves of your ancestors.
The nap is stealthy; regardless of how many times you realize that the nap is a bad idea, and however many times you try to befriend it, it will only give you unhappiness and discombobulation, it somehow continues to convince you to try it out.
You think "oh, I'm tired enough this time, it's going to be awesome." or "maybe this time, things will be different. I just need to shut my eyes for a brief fairy-wink of a second..."
And then you end up sleeping for five consecutive hours and have wasted your entire day.
NAP EXPECTATION:
That burning feeling in your eyes is relieved as they gently close, blocking out the harsh rays of the cruel sun. You drift gently, and angel babies, their wings made of the softest down, descend dreamily, singing with gilded voices lost lullabies written by the elves of Middle Earth. They stroke your hair, and you are floating, then resting on a bed made of air. You rock back and forth with a gentle breeze, and drift off into a peaceful sleep, dreaming of attractive men and faraway places. Unicorns whinny in the distance, and perhaps Dumbledore from the first two movies shows up to read you fairytales with his little quiet whisper voice. You then awaken an hour later, completely refreshed and ready to go on with your day. You feel awesome. You feel like you were resting in downy dryer sheets and your whole soul has been purified. Those angel babies bid you farewell, congratulate you on your successful napping, and wish you luck as you decide to finish all of the things that you were too lazy to do before. This is YOUR time.
NAP REALITY:
Your eyes are burning, and sure, closing them sure does soothe that sensation. Unfortunately, that gentle drift into a peaceful, gentle slumber, sure does not come. You try for about ten minutes to sleep, but your brain is like "lol, no." So you open your eyes, sit up, and try to do something. But NO. The nap is a jealous boyfriend who really isn't doing anything for you, but just won't let you go. Although you're too awake to sleep, you're also far too tired to be awake. So you close your eyes again, and the descent into dreamland feels like you're tumbling down the stairs of Cirith Ungol, except there are a lot more boulders and pointy bushes and Shelob runs out and attacks about every five minutes. At some point, Gollum may succeed in biting off your finger. When you finally reach your destination: sleep, you have thoroughly unexciting dreams about shopping or work, and are woken up about 2.5 million times as your siblings do their absolute best to re-enact the Hunger Games. Your slumber is interrupted by intermittent war cries and arguments, and you decide they are trying to learn how to break dance.
Every time you are woken up, you decide you've had enough. You try to struggle out of the cold grasp of the nap, but with hands like that black goo that crawled out of the meteorite in Spider Man 3, it convinces you that you need some more sleep and drags your brain back down.
You wake up five hours later with a burning headache and a stuffy nose. You aren't sure which millennium you've drifted into. Maybe the zombies have eaten your friends. Maybe you live on Mars now. You feel all stiff and painful and sore and STILL TIRED. The nap has betrayed you.
This is the day, brothers and sisters, that I vow to never take the dreaded nap again. Not only did it leave me feeling thoroughly UNrefreshed, it forced me to lie awake until three last night while visions of the slumber that I wasn't having danced through my head. Exhaustion has turned me into a rage beast. Who knows when or who I will strike. Just be prepared.
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