How to take a nap. With cats.

As a nap expert and college professor I feel like this is a real strong point for me, so allow me to share some fine tuned techniques I’ve curated over the years. I hate the word curated but since this is a tutorial, there’s a lot of pressure on me to make this feel exclusionary and elitist. Using words like curated and conserved really grants me that sense of unearned snootiness that so many writers crave.

Now then, let’s begin.

I’m going to present this tutorial in a simple series of steps which will yield an amazing (amazeballs, if you prefer) nap experience.

  1. Is the sun up? Congratulations, you can take a nap. If the sun is down, it isn’t a nap, it’s sleeping, which is a prohibited activity for parents, students, parents of students, and anyone who is not a cat.
  2. Lower the thermostat to 58 degrees. If it’s winter, you’ll want to raise the temperature to 66 degrees. Do not deviate. It’s science.
  3. Do you have any cats? If yes, go to step five. If no, go to step four.
  4. Visit your local animal shelter and select 5-20 cats to ignore your presence. Take the cats home, release into house and go to your bedroom for further instructions.
  5. Begin preparing your bed by layering a sheet, two blankets, and no less than six pillows. It is preferable that one of the blankets is fuzzy and/or a worn quilt. Bonus points if the quilt belonged to a deceased relative.
  6. Turn your pillows. Examine them for irregularities, then strike the pillows with firm, sharp blows in order to show them who’s boss. Restack.
  7. Turn back one corner of the bedcovers at a 45 degree angle. Any more will result in a temperature compromise in the Central Mattress Zone. This is unacceptable. Protect the heart of the Mattress Zone like your virtue, unless your name is Tiffani, in which case you protect the toasty area of the bed like it’s your Volkswagen Jetta.
  8. Slip under the covers carefully. Don’t cause disarray. The idea is to be a lump, not a tornado.
  9. Remain still for ten seconds while the cats begin to arrange themselves on your head, face, and shoulders. Bonus if you have any exposed skin that they can knead with their claws; you should steel your nerves so as not to move while they soften you for mattress material.
  10. Put your phone down.
  11. Seriously, put the phone down.
  12. FFS, Kelsey, get off twitter and put your phone down.
  13. Close your eyes.
  14. Don’t answer the text. The cats will get mad and since there are twenty of them and you’re basically a human burrito under the covers, they can eat you if they so choose.
  15. Quietly admonish the one weird cat who is eating your hair.
  16. Give up, since hair grows back.
  17. Quietly admonish the three cats who have chosen to give themselves full body baths while laying on your stomach.
  18. Remark that if you could lick your own legs, it would save a lot of time in the morning.
  19. Feel yourself drifting off to sleep, a sweet release of relaxation punctuated by toasty little lumps who begin purring because they sense your surrender.
  20. Wake up in a panic five hours later, groggy, disoriented and with a lowkey headache.
  21. Vow to never sleep during the day for that long, know it is a lie.
  22. Name the cats.
  23. Change three names of cats, change back. Look at phone. Plan nap for Thursday.

This concludes my expert advice. Naturally, you’ll want to tailor these steps to your own needs, but I don’t recommend it. I’m an expert, and I have over eleven college credits.

This concludes my public service for the week.