College provides us with our very best and most appreciated napping opportunities. College students value naps. They tweak their napping performance. They seek out heightened napping experiences. They nap-train for both time and distance. We will not even ponder how they season and spice their nap creations.
Toddlers and preschoolers mostly resent their naps as a conspiracy by exhausted grown-ups. Old folks don't even appreciate that they have been snoring the afternoon away on a major nap they don't remember.
Parents of toddlers, preschoolers, and college students wish it was their turn for rolling up in a Smurf comforter and listening to a Raffi tape. Middlish-aged children of snoring old folks envy the chance to doze off sitting straight up in the wheelchair.
Assisted living: A small apartment with staff to help you put on your socks and change your sheets. Your own tiny kitchen and a dining room where you can order off the menu. Managing your investments online and a Texas line-dancing club. My walker is better than your walker. Someone to drive you to appointments. Time to wonder what driver the pro will use on his tee shot.
Dad doesn't want to move to assisted living. I do. When can I start?
In the next novel by Stephanie Kallos there will be a character partially named after my dad. I don't know if the character will be in assisted living. Being in fictional living is good, too. Now, then, it's time for my nap.
© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder
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