While you were sleeping. . .

I have a friend who comes over to my house once or twice a week, for cocktails, laughter, television, or whatever. We love having her here, she is great, we always manage to have a good time even when we are just sitting around doing nothing. The problem is that this friend, who shall remain nameless (ahem-Gabrielle), always falls asleep. Without fail she will inevitably fall into a deep coma and slump over in her chair mid-evening, be it mid-Project Runway or mid-sentence. And no matter how much she may try to deny it, or how many jokes we might make about it, when she walks in the door, we all know that at some point in the night she will most assuredly be napping. Right now, for example, she is sleeping in the other room, curled up on the sofa with a comfy blanket and a tiny little chihuahua. She has been there for more than three hours now. But I can't really begrudge her that, after all, we are all sleep deprived, and sometimes, let's face it, you have to sleep it off before you can safely drive home.

The good news about Gabrielle's I.N.C. (Inconsiderate Narcoleptic Comas) is that usually, had she gotten up and said "well I'm tired, I'm going home," I would have wished her a safe trip, and proceeded to laze about watching bad TV until sleep finally came MY way. But instead, since she is here, I become strangely enlivened and motivated to get stuff done. Like her unused potential energy is somehow magically transmuted into my kinetic energy through her sleep.

Instead of sitting around on my ass doing nothing, for example, in the last three hours of her blissful sleeping, I have watched a movie that needs to be returned tomorrow (Prom Night. . .dumb I know, but I find most horror movies to be pretty watchable, there I have said it. Stop judging me!), unloaded and loaded the dish washer, washed and dried a load of laundry, wiped down the counters, written three emails, read all my favorite blogs, made a grocery list, pulled out dinner for tomorrow night from the freezer, flipped through this month's W and Harper's Bazaar, and written this blog entry.

So basically what it all boils down to is this: if all of you could just come to my house and nap in shifts, there is no telling what other wonderful things I might be able to accomplish. After a week I would no doubt have single handedly solved our nation's health care crisis, our dependence on foreign oil, and safely pulled our troops out of Iraq, all while intermittently baking untold numbers of award winning treats. Nap your way to world peace. It's win win.