NAPS RULE!

I am a cat-nap person.  I enjoy a snooze that can last anywhere from mere seconds to a couple of minutes.  I'm talking about real cat-naps, not the head-bobbing snoozing that happens when I sit too long in front of the monitor, or when I fall dead-asleep in front of the television while sitting up, totally pretending I'm still awake (only to open my eyes and see people staring and laughing at me).

Cat-naps are the best.  I've even taken them at my desk at school.  My eyes are open, then suddenly it's like a really long blink, and about fifteen seconds have gone by that I know I've dozed through, but I feel completely refreshed.  I swear I've napped at stop lights, though I probably shouldn't admit that.  I've napped in the car while waiting for kids to get out of sporting events, but I'd move to the passenger seat so as not to get into the habit of snoozing at the wheel (see earlier reference to stop light).

Cat-naps are to the soul what a clean, deep breath is to the lungs.

I've been known to take longer naps, too.  Planned naps are the bomb.  If I'm going in  for a planned nap, I get the pillows on the couch all set up, or I spread out in the big comfy chair, grab one of the hundreds of blankets I own, and I'm out in seconds but asleep for usually about ten to twenty minutes.  Those naps are great!

Some naps suck, though.  Naps that sneak up on me?  I don't like those so much.  I dislike going for a short power-nap then waking up two hours later all disoriented.  Those naps are not refreshing.  But I really dislike those sneak-attack naps that happen when I intend to do something else, when a nap isn't even on my radar.  Sure, these are the naps that my body probably needs, but I hate hate hate them.

Take tonight, for example.  I've had a productive but fun day at work, followed by a productive but stress-free grocery shopping experience (no stupid cart-pushers, no lines at the registers, no broken eggs nor squished bread).  I have a stress-free dinner while watching HGTV, which is about as low-key as any TV available.  I decide to sit down and read at 7:00 p.m.  Read.  Yup, I'm going to read.  I'm going to grab a blanket (because it's a chilly evening), plump up the couch pillows and read.  And ... read ...and...

All of a sudden, I'm out cold.  I wake up ten minutes later and think, "Wow, I didn't even know I needed a nap--"  BOOM.  Out cold again.  I wake up twenty minutes after that and feel like I could just crawl up to bed and stay there for the rest of the night.  Thank goodness Jeopardy is on because I cannot get my ass off that couch for anything, so I pretend to play along while clearing the cobwebs.  I feel like I'm in a semi-fog, like my brain is too heavy to one side of my head, like I feel sometimes when I'm getting a migraine only I'm not getting a migraine.

These kinds of naps are not refreshing.  As a matter of fact, they make me feel old.  They remind me of the elderly folks in the nursing homes where I used to work a lifetime ago, those people who suddenly stop mid-sentence, drop their chins to their chests, and start drooling.

Good lord, I'm becoming a pre-drooler!  I've gone from cat-napper to droopy-napper without the progressive aging in between.  I'M DOOMED.

Finally I rouse myself off the couch, clear the cobwebs, and head to the kitchen.  I still have some groceries to put away, jars and boxes of things to put into cabinets.  I toy with the idea of reading at the kitchen table but decide that might just bring on another scary-ass nap episode.  Nope, I'm not "napping" again tonight until it's the real bedtime.  Then I can pretend my shut eyes are intentional.

Yogi Berra once claimed, "I usually take a two-hour nap from 1:00 to 4:00."  I'm thinking Yogi just might have been onto something.  Now, if you don't mind, I'm tired from all this thinking and writing.  I need to nap again before bed.