I missed my afternoon classes the
other day. But it wasn’t my fault.
Really. I was a victim of the Nap
Attack.
The insidious Nap Attack
(otherwise known as the Bag Monster)
plays on the college student’s chronic
lack of sleep. It watches and waits,
always eager to drag you from
important tasks, homework and
deadlines into several hours of blissful
unconsciousness.
It inhabits familiar, inanimate
objects — like my bed the other day.
As I got out of my morning classes and
started walking across campus, I could
hear my bed calling me: “Amy...
Amy... you’re getting verrmry
sleeeeeeepy. Your eyelids are getting
heavy... heavy...”
My bed is a smooth talker.
As soon as I walked into my dorm
room, the spell took effect. When a
Nap Attack hits you, resistance is
useless.
“I’ll just lie down for a minute, ” I
rationalized drowsily. But soon, “Pll-
just-lie-down-for-a-minute” turned
into “Mmmmmmmm, a nap wouldbe
really nice,” which slowly gave way to
“Well, I do have a whole hour before
my two-o’clock.”
Then, of course, it had me. Hook,
line and sinker. The Nap Attack
moved in for the kill.
“Come on,” it intoned
hypnotically, “Set the alarm, yeah, set
the alarm for ten ’til. You’ll wake up in
plenty of time for class, yeah — yeah,
that’s it — that’s the ticket. ”
At this point, I was so far gone
anything sounded logical. So I set the
alarm for a nice, refreshing 45-minute
nap. After what seemed like exactly
three seconds, the alarm slammed me
abruptly back into the land of the
living.
But I think snooze buttons were
invented with the college student in
mind.
Snooze. That was an hour?!?
Snooze. Justfivemoreminutes...
snooze. I don’t remember, does he
take roll? Snooze. It’s too late now
anyway — I’ll get the notes later.
1777777777777.
And the game is over. Nap Attack:
1. Amy: 0.
It gets me during class, too,
especially eight-o’clocks. I’ll be sitting
there taking notes like a good little
scholar, with complete control over
my own will and my state of
consciousness. And then, little by little,
sleepiness will begin to take root. It
hangs little weights on my eyelids and
blurs my vision. My mind wanders,
my head nods and my notes trail off
into inky, bail-point nothingness.
Resistance is useless.
And I’m not alone in this affliction;
sleepiness is the curse of the college
student. You can pick them out in a
crowd by the dark circles under their
eyes. Between attending classes,
studying, holding down a job and
attempting to have a social life, getting
an adequate amount of sleep
becomes almost impossible. That’s
why college students are so
susceptible to spontaneous slumber.
It’s kind of amusing if you think
about it. Nap Attacks are a challenge
in creativity. People crash out
everywhere: in class (popular among
members of the Corps of Cadets), in
the library, on the shuttle bus, in the
student center and on park benches.
People fall asleep face-down on books
and wake up with creases down their
noses. I once saw a girl asleep on a
couch in the Evans library with a note
pinned to her shirt: “Please wake me
up for my 8 a.m. final!” I hope
someone woke her up.
What’s not amusing, however, is
falling asleep behind the wheel of a
car. When you’re trying to make it
home on a tank of gas and an hour of
sleep, it’s all too easy to drift off and
wake up face to face with an 18-
wheeler. That’s when people start
looking for ways to fend off the Nap
Attack.
Stimulants sometimes work.
Coffee, tea and Coke are always
popular; some prefer NoDoz or
Vivarin. A new cola, Jolt, advertises
“all the sugar and twice the caffeine”
of the leading soft drink, with an eye,
I’m sure, on the college market. If the
Food and Drug Administration
banned caffeine, higher education
would be a lost cause.
I used to pull all-nighters for
American literature tests with a guy
who sat next to me in class. We’d hole
ourselves up in a claustrophobic,
closet-like study lounge and dissect
Faulkner, Dickinson, Hemingway and
life in general. It was easy to stay
awake because I wasn’t despairing,
sitting there all by myself with my
illegible notes and several unread
novels. I was having a wonderful time
sitting there rapping with my friend,
ignoring my illegible notes and several
unread novels. We didn’t get a whole
lot of studying done, but we stayed
awake, drank a lot of coffee and ate a
lot of pizza.
Everyone has a different way to
fight sleepiness. Some ways work
better than others.
This week’s attention!! photo was taken by
Jay Stevens, a junior journalism major.
But the human body, however Resistance is useless,
resiliant, has limits. And the Nap Amy Couvillon is a junior
Attack is patient. Sooner or later, you journalism major and staff writer
have to give in. for The Battalion.
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