Dear Napping Teacher,
For the exhausted teacher, the elusive nap usually occurs on Sunday if church doesn’t go too long, and if the restaurants aren’t too crowded, and if all the stars align perfectly on a night with low humidity, which is almost never.
But should the “nap possibility” make it through this initial screener, there are a few other criteria up for consideration such as 1) The nap must occur during the acceptable nap window, which every teacher knows is between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. If a nap has not started by 3:00 p.m., hang it up. It’s not happening this week. Otherwise, you’ll be up too late on Sunday, which will throw everything off kilter for the entire week.
2) All duties for the week must be completed prior to the nap. This includes grading papers, folding clothes, ironing clothes, and planning for the week. Insert maniacal teacher laughter here.
3) The teacher’s young children must remain quiet for an extended period of time. Upon waking from the fantasy nap, the teacher must be prepared to unclog the toilet, google how to remove Sharpie from the human body, and vacuum five billion, tiny, multi-colored Nerds from where they found the parade candy stash while she was sleeping. While she vaccuums, she remembers there's been no parades since before COVID. She reasons that these Nerds likely came from the Christmas parade of 2019. Oh well, at least this counts as dinner.
After recovering from the nap aftermath, the teacher braves her way to the grocery store to forage for food, but of course, Sunday is the worst day for shopping. Even stock boys rest on the Lord’s Day.
She returns home with two cans of Dinty Moore roast beef that nobody will eat and an economy size bottle of Excedrin. At least one of the two items will be put to good use.
At 9:00 p.m. she folds two towels, grades half an essay, and plans nothing. Nothing at all, and you know why?
Because it’s the last week of school, and by God, in a few short days she’ll nap when she wants to and exchange that Dinty Moore for a shrimp cocktail at Flounders while listening to the sounds of summer beneath a pink and orange sunset.
It’s almost here, friends. Listen closely.
That's the sound of the sun melting, waves crashing, and steel drums dinging.
Can you hear it?
-CDB