Wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up – Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against the Machine)
The sound of birds singing, that warm sun peeking through the window, light frost on the grass – none of these things are as magical when you get up past the crack of noon. And it begs the question, how late is too late to sleep in? Also, at 53 years old, should I still be getting in trouble from my mom for sleeping through lunch? And what if lunch is kale salad?
Sleeping in is an art mostly dominated by youths and board game players. But it shouldn’t just be limited to those fine, upstanding citizen types. Sleeping in should be a celebrated discipline for all to enjoy.
I am proud to say that, given the right conditions, I can still sleep in with the best of them. Unfortunately, though, I find my talent for sleeping in is strongest from Monday to Friday. For some reason, that is when my bed is the warmest and most hospitable. On the weekends, explanations for which I’m sure only physics can answer, my body seems to reject the comforts of my linen and rouses me way earlier than I actually intend to gain consciousness. It’s a real bummer.
It’s almost as if my bed is not just sentient, but cruel also and somehow wakens me long before my mind has had any intentions of meeting another cold winter day. During the weekdays, however, my bed seems to be sleeping in itself and embraces me with its cozy tenderness. The room is mysteriously colder during the weekdays and the blankets just a little heavier.
On Fridays, I try to stay up a little later than usual, knowing that my Saturday morning agenda is non-existent and that, if I wanted to, I could sleep through the whole day. I also know that if I turn my phone off and lock my door, my slumber shall be protected from the unwanted solicitations on the telephone or those annoying drop-ins. But it never works. There I am, at 6 a.m. trying with all my might to find another 20 winks or so.
Back to the query at hand though, exactly how late is too late to sleep in?
According to Dr. Donald Slumbernugget’s book How I Sleep in and Still Manage to Pass Myself Off as a Functioning Adult, the acceptable time to sleep in depends on a lot of things. If you are a parent of small children, for example, anything beyond 4:30 a.m. is considered too long, and if you consistently sleep later than this, your kids will grow up to become politicians or worse, move to Prince Rupert.
For those of us without children, Dr. Slumbernugget suggests that as long as you attend dinner with most of your privates covered up, you’re good to go (with the caveat that “dinner” involves at least two of the food groups and the dishes have to be clean).
Interestingly, people without jobs (or who work from home because it’s kind of the same thing) can sleep in ad infinitum if they desire (even past dinner!) as long as they give the impression that they worked really, really late the night before on that report that was due last week. (And as per Dr. Slumbernugget’s book, the report doesn’t even have to be real!)
So whether you have kids, don’t have kids, or if you are still a kid, rest easy in the knowledge that if you want to sleep in late – be it 9 a.m., 12 p.m., or perhaps even noon the next day – the only people who are going to judge you for that are your parents (and who cares about them), your children (and you’re their boss anyway, so who cares about them), or me (and you really don’t need to care about me). Just enjoy your warm bed and have an excuse at the ready if it’s a workday.