"'Night, 'Night"

I always knew I enjoyed it, but I was not aware of how much.

And then, last night, I was climbing the stairs and I realized that arguably the best part of my day was about to begin.

I was going to sleep.

I felt almost giddy about it.  I know that sounds silly, but I am only reporting what my beaming visage reported to me.  Sleep was the next thing on my agenda.  And my quickening steps upstairs proclaimed,

“Yippie!”

What a wonderful thing it is that sleep comes at the end of the day and not at the beginning.  Were it the opposite, I would have nothing to look forward to after a long day’s travail.  It would be, “The best thing is over; now, a long day’s travail.”  Sleep is the day’s “Extra Added Attraction”, which belongs at the end.  You want the cherry on the top of the sundae, not buried somewhere at the bottom.

(At least I do.  That way, I can easily toss it away rather than eating it by accident.  I don’t like those candied cherries.  Making that, in retrospect, an inaccurate analogy.  And yet, it stays in.  By the way, in the southern hemisphere, along with the flipping of the seasons and the toilet water circling in the opposite direction, sleep, in fact, does come at the beginning of the day.  You might want to double-check me on that.)    

I know there are people who brag about needing only three or four hours of sleep at night.  One of them is our current president.  (Which deeply saddens me.  How much less damage could he do if only he slept longer?)  To me, choosing to curtail the duration of “sweet surrender” or “beneficent slumber” – pick one – is like going on some celestial game show, winning “Two glorious weeks in heaven” and announcing, “I only want one.”

That’s how much I like sleep.  And how far one can strain for an appropriate analogy.  I think I’ll stay off them for a while. 

“Major Penalty:  Number Seventy-two and Three Quarters:  Pomerantz – Five minutes for ‘Artless Analogizing’.”

This could be tricky.  I am now playing the game one literary allusion short.

Okay.  Straight talk.  No ballooning artifice.  (And I probably did not need “ballooning.”) 

Ten Reasons Why Sleep Is So Wonderful 

(I may need to alter that number.  At this point, I have nothing.)

One Reason Sleep Is So Wonderful:  You almost never drown when you are asleep.  (The qualifying “almost” being for waterbeds.) 

Reason Number Two:  You cannot go downstairs and eat that fourth slice of pizza when you are asleep.  (Unless you are a somnambulant, sub-section:  a “Pizza-Eating” somnambulant.  It’s rare, but it happens.)

Three:  You cannot make an embarrassing gaffe to when you are asleep.   (Extraneous Tidbit:  Political journalist Michael Kinley once opined, “A ‘gaffe’ is when a politician tells the truth.”) 

Four:  You cannot write a check to Spectrum cable and send it Mastercard by mistake when you are asleep.

Five:  Nobody ever loses their keys when they are asleep.  (Unless – and trust me, this almost never occurs – they are somnambulant “Key Swallowers.”  And even then, the keys will eventually – naturally or surgically – come back to you.

Six:  You cannot accidentally mess up your Internet order for Altoids and wind up getting cartons of Altoids shipped to you every month when you are asleep.  Regular readers will remember the same thing happened to me with Kind Bars.  It has now happened with my Altoids order as well.  And on both occasions, I was awake!

Seven:  You cannot ruin your eyes watching six Law & Orders in a row – all of which you have already seen – when you are asleep.  (Bonus Advantage:  Your eyes are rested so you can watch more of them tomorrow.)

Eight:  You cannot go outside wearing your gym pants inside-out when you are asleep.

Nine:  You cannot receive terrible news when you are asleep.  You can dream it, of course, but when you wake up, it’s not true.  Unless you are a sleeping clairvoyant.  And how many of those are there? 

Ten:  You can die in your sleep, but, as opposed to “dying awake”, you will be unaware of it until you do not arise the following morning.  (Show of Hands:  “Dying in your sleep” at the appropriate juncture.  Anybody against it?  There you have it.  The worst thing of all is better when you’re asleep.) 

An Encore Inclusion:  Sleep is absolutely free.  Rich and poor sleep for the exact same price and fexactly the same way.  Unless one of them has a guilty conscience.

Ta-da.  I did it.

(Pomerantz struts majestically around the ring like a victorious wrestler.  Rapturous applause:  deserved but unnecessary.)

I admittedly enjoy other satisfying pleasures in life:  Meditation, unforced “regularity”, a nice cold glass of water – How well do you think that list would serve me on eharmony.com?  But for me, the Gold Medal Winner of the “Joys of Life Olympics” is unquestionably sleep.

Which at the moment, is a full half-a-day away. 

I suppose I could in the meantime consider a list of “Waking Pleasures.”

Let’s see, now…

One:  Making this list will help distract me until it is time for me to go to sleep.

I am not sure this is going to work.

For me, sleep is quintessential perfection.

The rest is just running out the clock.

(Additional Question:  How come you can watch yourself going to sleep but you cannot experience the transitional “changeover?”  I’d like to know what that feels like sometime.  Wouldn’t you?)