A useful napping product has emerged in the napping arena in recent months, the Snazzy Napper! Basically it's a blanket with a nose hole that you throw over your face that the commercial believes makes you actually disappear and is "cool." It's a good idea in theory, if it did actually made you disappear. Unfortunately though, it's more of a "Who's that crazy lady in the corner with the blanket over her face? Is she dead?" type of situation. And it's definitely not cool.
As I've mentioned in the past in passing, napping is one activity at which I excel. I was always a good napper as a kid, and then in high school I really started to hit my stride. And these were the days before inventions like the "Snazzy Napper" were considered hip and trendy. I'd take a shower in the morning, take a quick nap, then get up and get dressed. I'd go to school, speed home and nap for 15 minutes and then get ready for field hockey. To this day, every time my friend Jenny calls me, she asks me "Did I wake you?" It doesn't matter if it's 7 am or 7 pm, it's just a habit from growing up.
I had never faced an instance where my napping was considered problematic until a couple of years ago. As I got older and bolder, I started napping in more public spaces. I'd take a quick snooze on the bus, or even close my eyes for half hour while laying on a blanket in the park. As an English teacher in companies in Buenos Aires, every day I'd have to travel all over the city to my various companies, often with time in between, and boy was it exhausting. There was one company in particular that was quite far but it was a fun technology company, the students were cool and the pay was good and so I taught there.
Those mornings I taught a very early class at 7 am beforehand and then I'd catch a shuttle that would take me to the faraway company, but annoyingly the shuttle left only once every two hours. This either made me 30 minutes late or 1.5 hours early. So I'd arrive early at the tech company and sit in their lounge which was equipped with ping pong tables, video games, foosball, and irresistible beanbag chairs. I'd read in the chairs and occasionally shut my eyes for a few minutes. Who was I harming? No one! I was always on time for class, and it's not like I was shushing people who got rowdy while playing FIFA.
Well one day I received an email from the institute where I worked saying that many people complained to the HR woman at the tech company about the random napping lady in their lounge, and could I please never nap there again, as it wasn't the first time it happened. Granted most people in the company did not take English classes with me, and to them I was just some weirdo sleeping by the ping pong table, but my students who knew my situation all understood, I had a lot of time to kill!
Regardless, embarrassment and an apology ensued. Now if the Snazzy Napper had existed back then, maybe this entire situation could have been avoided!
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