You know what’s even better than laying on a hammock in the backyard on a sunny Saturday afternoon? Better than catching a few winks after classes before a long night out at the bars? Better than falling asleep on the couch with the baseball game on the radio? You know what’s even better than all that?
I’ll tell you what: illegal naps, my friend. Sneaking them in when you ain’t supposed to.
Napping any time you know you shouldn’t be napping has a bit of an edgy, dangerous feel to it, like sneaking into a movie, sharing a free-refill soda at Applebee’s, or coming across customs without declaring the new sweater you’re wearing.
I’m talking about driving away from work at lunchtime, parking in a nearby parking lot, tilting back your driver’s seat, and then sneaking in a little siesta before an afternoon full of meetings. I’m talking about waking up groggily at 11am after a long night, chomping on handfuls Corn Pops while surfing the Internet for an hour, then going back to the bedroom to crash all afternoon, building towards that exotic and sinful Day O’ Naps. 
Yes, I’m talking about the naps you pull off in the bathroom stall at work, the ones at the back of the bus just before your stop, and the naps you take in the middle of a big bout of procrastination before a deadline, where you convince yourself that after a few zzz’s you’ll have more energy to finish up that big paper due in a few hours.
So come on! If you’re with me then you agree life’s just too short not to sleep when you feel like it. So lower those blinds, unplug that alarm clock, and nap strong, nap long, and nap proud, my friends.
AWESOME!
This post is in The Book of Awesome
Oh man, that takes me back. Years and years ago when I worked in the Sears warehouse, on more than one occasion I snuck off to the matress section, and they were all standing upright so I couldn’t lay down, but I wedged myself between two of them and grabbed myself a quick standing nap. It was kind of like a fully upright chalk outline. The only catch was that you would have to turn your head to the side to avoid being smothered by the matresses.
when i worked in a mcdonalds i once fell asleep in the cooler also nothing beats sleeping on those fancy expensive masage beds at a furniture store
I know its generally been commented a few times before, but I think it needs to be said outright, once and for all. The pictures you dig up for these posts have got to rank among the most AWESOME things around. That toddler sleeping on her way to grab some toys? CLASSIC! The pregnant woman giving the high-ten to her guy friend? JOYOUS! The queen, picking her nose? GROSS, but still AWESOME!
Keep it up!
OWWW!that must hurt!the poor kid half standing half lying down!! lol
yeah, i totally have to agree with freddo there – you find the awesomest pictures evar.
napping is the best. one day i slept in until noon, went out for brunch and then hiked for two hours, only to nap afterwards for another 45 minutes. and then when i got home that evening i napped for a good hour and a half. that was one of the more perfect lazy days i’ve had in a while.
Ooh, you forgot napping during class! That was a long time ago for me, but still awesome.
Oh I used to love napping in class!! I sat right in front of the teacher but she never used to notice!!
And when I’d faint, and was taken to the nurses office, I remember regaining consciousness but still lying there so I could take a nap!
SNORING IN CLASS
I’m 13 and just took a nap in class…..ps I have an iPad at my school so I can do stuff like this
I told a policeman in New Jersey I was going to nap in my car. Turns out it was illegal :/
I heard it was only ilegal if the keys are in your egnition, or within reach.. If you lock your keys in the trunk I think you are okay..
Napping is the best! Especially on the bus, or on an airplane..
Airplane naps rule…it just makes flight time that much shorter…
awesome
Hav been guilty of the lunch time nap! Naps are also better with a good running fan.
I used to be able to nap sitting up in work, behind a pair of huge old computer screens. But then I was presented with a pair of flatscreens that, while very nice, allowed my co-workers to see what I was up to. So no more naps for me. Not very awesome.
When I worked at a law office, my boss would leave everyday at lunch time. I would take a nap under my desk, which was very deep. The worst was when he would return and sit at my desk, having no idea I was under there. I would have to stay there, very quietly, until he left.
whoever wrote this can you give me ur email so i can send you a funny photo of someone napping
itl be worth it
damn you jizzmop! oh well, i guess it was worth it…
YES! I’m at work and just grabbed a delectably illegal nap myself. It was the highlight of my day. And Scott, way to go with your extra creative illegal work napping, lol. Keep it up!
What were you laying in the hammock? There is a noun missing there. Perhaps you really meant “LYING in the hammock?”
truer words have never been spoken. i do it at work all the time.
ahahaha.
good college memories.
we used to say
“well rested is well tested.”
and take naps instead of studying.
I was a janitor at a department store real early and I hated mornings, I used to take naps in the dressing room. The handicap room of course with the larger benches, lol. But the downfall was that they thought I was shoplifting because they couldn’t figure out where I went.
Umm… does passing out count? If so, what about those times you’re in the bathroom and you just fall asleep on the nice, cold floor…
I once fainted at work, and I remember, as I was coming around to the world again and wondering why I was on the floor, that I thought I must have fallen asleep.
And I felt really bad about it.
i found it hilarious when you mentioned the bathroom stall naps. Thats become a common habit for me ever since i started working in the corporate environment. I usually go to the ones people rarely go to and can easily wake up when i hear someone opening the door. Am i the only one who does this?
I have done this sort of thing since I was 16. Now in the corporate would, I sill do it on occasion.
My friend works in a small shop and has a great story about how she closed the shop up for 20 minutes one day and made herself a bed in the changing rooms to nap : )
If this includes taking a nap in class then I’m in. I would always have those teachers who would arrange us alphabetically and since my last name started with a T I was always in the back. That was where I could pull off those whole class naps just to wake up right before the bell so I can get that stretch in before the next one.
Had a summer job one time, it was for my buddys uncle, so a bunch of my friends worked together. We had a trailer where we would eat and put our stuff (it was a construction site) so as time went on, and there wasn’t much to be done on site. We would go and take turns taking naps in the trailer, spread out a huge plastic bag on the floor, and use the rain coats as your pillow. Good times.
Hell yeah. I used to be a cleaner at a mental hospital, and in one of the cleaning cupboards we kept spare duvets and pillows and the like. It also had only one key, and could be locked from the inside. Once when I was feeling particularly ill, I locked the cupboard, sat down amongst the duvets and had a 10 minute nap.
When I woke up again, I felt SO much better, and could actually complete the last few hours of the day rather than collapsing.
I know a couple of guys that would bury themselves on the bottom shelves behind the boxes of their company’s storage room to take their illegal naps. They almost got caught several times when the Big Cats of the company would hold mini meetings in the same room. They still sweat and laugh about it today.
When I was younger, I worked in Manhattan. I spent my lunch breaks over the summer taking naps lying down on the benches in the park around the corner from my job. They were incredible, sleeping with my cell phone on my stomach with the alarm on vibrate to wake me up to go back to work. Only in hindsight am I terrified/embarrassed by these naps but man… they were the best.
does passing out in class count?
Last summer I worked maintenance for college dorms. Everyone was gone for the summer, and me and the rest of the crew basically had 8 hours every day to “work.” There was a lot less work to do than we made out, so we spent probably half the time just sleeping on the extra long dorm beds. I felt guilty at first, but after a while it just became routine.
Last illegal nap I took was a few months ago back when I was working for a grocery store. I had a huge dinner party the night before that ended up lasting till 4 in the morning. After two hours of sleep the rush to get presentable for work began. I could help but notice 19 empty bottles of wine around my house and patio, it was a dinner party for 5 people. After arriving at work a little late, but unnoticed, I started opening the store. While walking through the store doing my normal duties I came across the bread isle, it was beautiful. I walked over to the store brand bread, pulled one just over the edge of the shelf and fell asleep. I stood there sleeping/passed out for about 15 minutes. When I awoke I felt one of the greatest feelings I have ever felt, I could not let it end. I realized it wasnt safe to continue napping with the bread while the store was open so I moved my nap to the bathroom floor. Im not saying I proud of it but if I can do it Denny’s, IHOP, and other various restaurants at 4am than I can do it at work.
1976. I was a janitor at CalExpo, the big annual state fair in Sacramento. I had the day shift and Sacramento in the Summer was damn hot. Fortunately there were large indoor exhibit spaces (air conditioned of course). One in particular became my second home for the 19 days the fair ran. You see, every county in Sacramento had a booth and these booths filled up this entire building. They were good sized and the cool thing is that in spite of being constructed side-by-side and back to back there were very cool “alleys” between them.
I love Sonoma County and loved it even more that summer when I discovered they had cases and case of red wine behind their booth. They also had rolls of fake grass carpet and when I rearranged them I ended up with a ergonomically perfect nap space.
Wine + Carpet Bed = Awesome.
After a quick lunch I’d head over, have a glass of wine, read a little and then take what I can only describe as the most intense “combat naps” in history. I’d awake feeling refreshed and almost ready to go back to cleaning under the rodeo stands and butt-sniping!
I’m a college student, and my FAVORITE place to nap is in our library. The Thompson Library at Ohio State just reopened this year after extensive remodeling and is now full of fresh smelling leather chairs and couches in nooks all over its 11 floors. Which means you can almost always stake claim on a place to lay your head between classes. Between the ambient noise, the smell of leather, and your already heavy eyelids it doesn’t take long to fall asleep for a catnap between classes.
When you hear library, you probably think of cramming for finals, writing that terrible term paper, or grabbing some study time between classes… Sure, I know those days too. But nothing beats a nap on the corner couch amidst the hustle and bustle and stress that is college life.
I once fell asleep in study hall. The guy next to me threw his book on the floor to scare me and I thought I’d dropped mine. I was searching all around my desk, flipping out, and I then proceeded to knock my book off the desk for real. Illegal nap fail.
I’m a stay at home mom….the best naps are the naps you take with your kid. There have been a few times my husband has come home early and caught us. On those occasions I act like I hardley ever nap with him, when really, I nap with my son every day.
I feel bad that he works all day, and while I do my share (cleaning, cooking ect), I still love to nap.
He is probably napping at work while you are doing your work at home… no worries!
happy wife = happy life. I bet you’re also the one who stays up all night when your son is sick. Being a mum is exhausting & there’s no shame in taking a nap with your child!
AMEN!
OH! THATS SOO FUNNY!! I wish I could do that.
I have a love-hate relationship with naps. I love to nap, but I hate to wake up and discover I just lost three hours that could have been spent working on my tremendous workload.
I catch illegal naps on my daily bus ride all the time. I get on at the first stop, and get off at the last, so I have a nice thirty minute time chunk where I can sleep, and never have to worry about missing my stop. I’ve also napped on benches. Probably not the wisest idea, but hey, when you gotta nap, you gotta nap.
I hate illegal naps, i always dream about being told off…
As always, your post is insightful as well as skillfully written thank you. Keep up the high-quality work I love your site! ;-)
I used to work for a bank as a temp, and was known as a bit of a trouble maker/ ring leader for the other temps. Because of this, management balked at putting me in a fire safety seminar, fearing what I might do or say to keep it off track. Luckily for them, when they eventually did (had to legally) I was really hungover, so I just sat at the back and went to sleep against the wall. No-one woke me, or ever told me off for it, so I have always assumed they were quietly pleased that I just shut the hell up.
My best illegal nap recently? At the dentist. You know you’ve had a hard week at work when you fall asleep on your lunch hour, while someone scrapes at your teeth with a sharp pokey metal hook. I didn’t wake up until the hygienist bumped me.
I’ve also napped while waiting for a jury to return a verdict…
DUDE! i do that almost everyday in one of my classes! it’s like “ok, i get it. You’re boring, i’m tired, and you’re not making sense, so i’m gonna get the notes/answers/work from my awesome nerdy friend who sits next to me!” and…….ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!
Me
When I worked for a large corporation in an office, I would take mini-naps in the bathroom stalls. Usually 5 minutes or so. But after one particularly long night I fell asleep for about a half hour, with my elbows on my knees (and my hands supporting my head). My elbows cut off almost all circulation in my legs and my legs had fallen asleep. I had to sit in the bathroom for another 10 minutes or so before I could actually walk on my sleepy legs! Fortunately no one seemed to notice my prolonged absence…
Love it! Everybody’s always ragging me for sleeping so much, but really, there are few things better than that freedom from not being able to keep your eyes open and then just letting go… Awesome! K.
Just to warn you never take a nap in a class you’re supposed to be attentive in! And I’m speaking from experience, it is pure evil what teachers do when you’re napping illegally in their class!
lmaoo, my dad told me once @ his work, which is the night shift, he got so tired, that he went into a boiler room of some sort and lied right on the ground and went to sleep for like 2 hours. I think it’s hilarious. xD
I took a little “power nap” while in the file storage room at work. I had taken my shoes off so I could move the boxes around and awoke to someone saying, “I wonder if she knows she forgot her shoes in here?”
Little did they know, I was snoozing behind the boxes HAha!
I used to work for a huge condo in Orange Beach Al as a house keeping supervisor. For some reason it would take the other supervisors about 30 minutes to approve a condo clean but for me it would only take about 10 so every day, every condo I would take a nap on one of the condo beds. I had my alarm set on my phone and I would re-make the bed before leaving. :) They never knew lol
Now I work for a staffing company and when the boss is gone (most of the time) and there are no jobs to fill I crack the door to the break room and take a nap on the couch. I always have the phones forwarded to my cell so I don’t have to get up every time the phone rings and I purchased one of those door sensors they have in gas stations so I know if someone walks in. There was one day where I actually took a 5 hour nap because the phone never rung and no one ever came into the office.
1 word: Military school.
Sneaking naps in the bathrooms during class, napping in academic buildings, falling asleep on the bleachers during a parade one time my friend and I were so tired we snuck to the trunk room and passed out on a stack of suitcases and of course that one formal building (JRT in this case) with all the comfy couches and chandeliers and hey, it even had a grand piano. Sleeping through formations (and then getting stuck) heck I fell asleep while marching in Color Guard once. Haha never going to forget it: the only girl on Color Guard and holding the AMERICAN FLAG leaning my head against the staff and sleeping while marching past regimental only to be woken up 5 minutes after the parade by my boyfriend (who was also the Regimental Commander at the time) telling me to get more sleep