Remember being five? When nap time was basically child torture and you fought it like a squirrel monkey hopped up on Pixy Stix and revenge?
Yeah…
NOW LOOK AT US.
We’re out here trying to function like proper grown-ass humans while our brain-processors are running on whatever’s the opposite of premium fuel?
Probably the mental equivalent of gas station hot dog water or whatever.
It’s funny cause Kid-you was like: “NO NAP! NEVER NAP! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!”
Now, Adult-you: would literally murder someone for a 20-minute power-down.
And as much as my math skills don’t math properly let’s have some fun, shall we? (Warning: this math is about as reliable as submarine with breathing holes, but stick with me…)
Average rejected childhood naps: 365 days × 5 years = 1,825 naps
Current adult desperation for naps: ∞
That’s roughly 2,737.5 hours of sleep debt you’re carrying around. No wonder your face looks like something that crawled out of a Lovecraftian nightmare and decided to get a job in middle management.
And here’s the real kick in the temporal nuts. You can’t get those naps back. They’re gone, just like your metabolism, your ability to eat an entire pizza without consequences, and your understanding of whatever the hell TikTok is supposed to be.
(Side note: Your parents? They weren’t being dictators. They were time travellers trying to save future-you from becoming this caffeine-powered shambling disaster who considers the space under their desk a “legitimate napping location.”)
The solution? There isn’t one. You can’t bank sleep like some kind of snooze-based cryptocurrency. All you can do is accept that your body is basically running on the biological equivalent of Windows Vista, and sometimes, just sometimes, you need to ctrl+alt+delete your entire afternoon and face-plant into the nearest horizontal surface.
So the next time Sharon from Accounting gives you side-eye for power-napping in the break room.
You’re not sleeping. You’re performing essential system maintenance on your human hardware.
And if anyone needs me, I’ll be under my desk, catching up on those 1,825 naps I missed. Don’t wake me unless the building’s on fire, and even then, check if it’s a load-bearing fire first.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/list
P.S. Am I going to regret the nap I’m about to have before 9pm? Probably not.