James Complains – About An Unplanned Nap

No-one loves an afternoon nap more than me. It’s a fundamental part of the working day as far as I am concerned…

I jest, of course- I’m a teacher, if I were to fall asleep at work I’d no doubt wake up with a very different hairstyle, a creatively drawn moustache and, in the same indelible ink, some choice expletives written on my forehead.

And that’s just what the other teachers would do…

But I digress. Clearly I don’t nap at work. Well I did once, but I was working late and I was the only person in the building so that was totally fine.

I do like an afternoon nap at home though, on a weekend or a day off. It can be quite refreshing. The noble siesta is, of course, commonplace in many of the warmer countries in Europe. Admittedly those same countries do seem to be the ones currently experiencing economic problems but I can’t imagine that the two phenomena are linked.

In any case it’s been warm in the South-East of England lately so I would be remiss if I didn’t enjoy a few catnaps of my own over the next few weeks.

But that is an entirely different thing to what I just did.

What I just did was sit down for a few minutes and wake up an hour later disoriented and dazed. I had the dreaded ‘unplanned’ nap.

Unlike the delightful ‘planned nap’, an unscheduled snooze wreaks havoc with my day. I had been intending to do lots of important jobs this afternoon. Not least of which was writing my weekly entry for ‘James Complains’. It was going to be a brilliant satirical piece about ‘poor customer service’ but now I’m far too groggy to do that any justice, so instead I’m offering this atrocity about falling asleep in the afternoon.

Also I wasted an hour being asleep when I didn’t want to be and, as a consequence, when I do want to be asleep tonight I’ll probably have insomnia.

And because it was an unplanned nap, I hadn’t made the necessary preparations for when I woke up. You need a post-nap strategy.

I woke up and I was thirsty. If it had been a premeditated doze I would have ensured there was something nice to drink in the fridge. Something cold and refreshing. Maybe a fruit juice.

But when I got to the fridge all I could find was beer. It was really nice beer too, because someone bought it for me as a gift. But it wasn’t what I needed post-snooze on a Sunday afternoon, when I still had loads of stuff to do.

Sadly I wasn’t capable of making a rational decision. The beer was too tempting.

In terms of all the tasks I was going to accomplish, my day is a complete write-off.

The only saving grace is that the delicious, cold, refreshing bottle of craft beer that I just consumed was one of several in the fridge…