ArcaMax

"When's dinner?" my husband asked me when he got home as I stood in the kitchen stirring a sauce.

"Pretty soon," I replied.

"Do you mind if I close my eyes for a minute?" he requested, putting down his bag and taking off his jacket.

I nodded. When most people say they're going to close their eyes for a minute, they actually mean more like 20 minutes or half an hour. But my husband, the King of Naps, he actually means a minute.

Most husbands have some special talent that they bring to their marriage. Some are handy around the house. Some are great with the grill. My husband has a unique skill. He can choose to fall asleep anywhere, at any time, and wake up feeling completely refreshed. He loves his naps, even the minute-long ones, and for this reason we call him Sir Napsalot.

He actually has a whole menu of naps to choose from. When he just needs a quick nap, he does a Five-Minute Facedown. A slightly longer nap gets him a 10-Minute Snoozer. In the car on a long drive -- when he's not the one driving, of course -- he will often take a Passenger Power Nap. For this nap he has to get the angle of the seat just right or he will alternate between head bobs and snorts, either of which will interfere with the positivity of the nap experience. At home, before dinner, he might have a quick Snores D'oeuvre, whereas a snooze on the couch before bed would be his Nappetizer.

He has excelled at finding unusual places to grab a quick nap. He has napped standing up in an elevator on a ride up to a high floor, and once he stood in full ski gear and napped in a gondola on the way up a mountain.

He did not nap skiing on the way down.

He naps on his work commute, both ways, whether it be by train or ferry. He seems to know on a subconscious level when it is time to wake up so he doesn't end up missing his stop, and only once did he end up at the end of the line in an empty train car.

Unlike my husband, I only nap in one of two places: on the couch or on the bed. And I don't feel rested unless I nap for an hour. He believes you have to keep your nap under an hour or else you wake up more tired than before you went to sleep, and it will also interrupt your sleep at night. Science is actually on his side, but I'm not sure what the scientists would say about the total of a series of short naps and Nappetizers in a given day. Since my husband seems to sleep just fine at night, it would seem he may be on to something.

Meanwhile, back at nap central, my husband chose to have a post-dinner Five-Minute Facedown rather than a Snores D'oeuvre before we ate.

"So, is there any of that cake left from last night for dessert?" he asked when he emerged from the bedroom to help me clean up.

"No," I said. "I ate the last piece."

"You didn't save me any?" he asked sadly.

"Sorry," I replied. "You snooze, you lose."

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Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, "Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble," available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www.tracybeckerman.com.

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