Most days, I need to take a nap just to make it through. And being an American, this fills me with shame. You can do anything in America, the land of opportunity, but don’t you dare sleep in the middle of the day!
Every time I kick back in a recliner or curl up on my cranberry-colored sofa, I’m wracked with guilt. A chorus of historical voices looks at me in dismay. The Puritans despise my flabby work ethic, the early colonists wonder about my sense of adventure, the frontier settlers see I lack a can-do spirit, the 20th century modernists cite me as an example of why America is falling behind, the post-modern workaholics shake their heads and list all the activities on their agendas that supplant sleep. As I hunker down in my gray sweatshirt and navy knit pants, I hear the collective voices of American capitalism sneering at me in disdain.
How vile! How slovenly! When I collapse on the sofa, I am not consuming a product or service. I should be trudging through stores, charging my purchases, eating lunch out, burning gas while stuck in traffic, and dreaming of a bigger car to haul my stuff in and a larger house to accommodate it all. And not only have I failed as a consumer, I’ve failed at producing anything of value. I’m personally responsible for slowing down the economy! I annoy all the hyperactive, slack-faced Americans who measure their worth in sleeplessness, cell phone activity, volume of e-mail, and hours spent multi-tasking.
Yes, I’ve let my country down. I’m an ambassador of lethargy and malaise. Let’s face it, there’s nothing more un-American than valuing silence and doing nothing or indulging in nature’s narcotic: sleep. So I keep my secret vice under cover, shall we say, as I pull a fleece throw up to my chin and draw the curtains during daylight hours. I listen to the clock tick on the mantel until everything fades to black. Ahhhh. Inner voices are silenced, my body is content, and I’ll wake up and deny it all happened as soon as I’m asked, “What did you do today?”
©2005 by Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.
November 1, 2005