Hope I don’t put you to sleep

 

Yes, I am a napper. I will admit it. A half-hour snooze in mid-afternoon works wonders. My wife used to complain until she saw how much my mood improved. Now she suggests, “Why don’t you take a nap?”

 

I napped before I retired too. On my last job I inherited a sofa somehow. It was wonderful! I would close the door and drift off after lunch. I considered phone calls a rude intrusion. You have a scoop for me? Call me later! 

 

When a higher-ranking editor retired, my boss wanted me to take his office. It was very nice, but there was no room fore a sofa. No way, I’m not moving there! I didn’t say why.

 

People must have known I was sleeping. After I retired, I asked someone about it. “Oh, yes,” she said, “and when you were on vacation, the secretary would sleep in there.” What? On my sofa? Without my permission? Not OK! Once, when I arrived for work,  I found a retired executive with dementia sleeping on my sofa. He sheepishly left as I cruelly glared at him. Got work to do!

 

Even without a sofa, I had intruders on another job, at U.S. News & World Report. A well-respected writer did not seem to have a home address. When his own office got too cluttered for him he would spend the night on the floor in others. When I found an odd smell and cigarette butts on the floor, I knew it was him. I think I left him a note about it. My office is my castle!

 

Sometimes when I can’t get to sleep, I reflect on some of my favorite naps: After my Sunday morning paper route, I would climb back in bed at 7 a.m. and snooze deeply for another hour or two. Another great place was the backyard lounge chair at my mother’s house in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

 

I also think of the time I was driving in a morning snowstorm in the Black Hills of South Dakota with a U-Haul trailer. When I got stuck on the ice, I got out and I fell on my back and broke a rib. I drove to an old small inn at the town of Custer for two hours of wonderful sleep. When the snow stopped I was still in pain but felt refreshed and drove on.

 

And now, excuse me, I think I’ll…Zzzzzz.