I think I’ve finally done it–I’ve figured out the so-called power nap. You know, the one that lasts 20 minutes and leaves you feeling ever so refreshed. The one that doesn’t even require an alarm clock, it’s so right and so natural.

Lately, I’ve been relying more on the power nap and less on the caffeinated beverages of extreme deliciousness to keep me energized; they really help prevent me from descending into pouty petulance because it’s 2 or 3 pm and I’ve hit the wall and resent not living in a siesta culture.

I will confess to having previously harboured rabid disbelief about the existence of the power nap. I scoffed at it the way members of the Westboro Baptist Church scoff at notions of evolution or, say, common decency–that’s right, I wore cute kitten sweatshirts while standing on street corners yelling obscenities and brandishing a sign reading “Jesus died in a bloody sweat because you lusted like the dirty whore you are after a power nap!”

(By the way, I just went to the Westboro Baptist’s Church’s website to make sure I was spelling “Westboro” correctly. They have a counter in which visitors may be informed how many people “God has cast into hell since you loaded this page”; it was at 76 when I noticed it. Gosh, things must be getting awfully crowded down there! If I can science it, I’m going to create my own counter to keep track of how many members of the Westboro Baptist Church redefine the word “dumbshit” as you browse this blog.)

But about the totally non-hellish issue of napping….or is it? You see, the reason I was a non-believer in the power nap is that for years I was able to experience only one kind of nap–the dreaded coma nap. You know the one–you sleep heavily for hours, wake up groggy, dehydrated, and still too tired to get out of bed easily, never mind do anything useful for many more hours after waking. Sometimes, the coma nap involves the cruelly ironic dream about being awake but too tired to move–which sounds relatively benign, but actually becomes quite terrifying quite quickly.

Yes, I used to only nap like I was flat-lining. Luckily, living a much healthier lifestyle than I used to do seems to have transformed many things, first of all how I take a snooze. The point, of course, being that I can now actually snooze, which is truly a great thing. (I also, apparently, have fantastic pegs; this morning at the gym, an elderly gentleman told me I had beautiful legs. This might be creepy, I can’t tell. In any case, this is apropos of nothing; I just thought you should all know that I am attractive enough to be hit upon occasionally by octogenarian Brits wearing shorts and gym socks.)

But I did have a coma nap a few days ago. Gawd, I was so thirsty when I woke up I thought I was going to die. And I was completely cat-locked–Jones cuddled into my side, Columbo sleeping on my shoulder, Fat Jeoffy passed out on my feet–so getting up felt more than usually impossible. I mean, it really doesn’t do to try to get out from under the covers when your cats clearly think it’s a bad idea.I didn’t even try until they got bored and released me.

Oh, look at the time. Almost 3pm. Time to power down…