MLK Sleep Tank and Literacy Redefined

It’s always funny how jokes evolve. Take for instance the running joke at the house about sleeping: A couple months ago I realized that there seemed to be a lot of napping going on at the house. Slowly a theory emerged, a group consensus, that there must be, at all times, someone sleeping in the house. The four of us would take shifts sleeping, not out of exhaustion or plain laziness, but out of duty and a commitment to hard work.

I usually covered the 3am to 10am shift and perhaps a late afternoon nap on the couch. John works early afternoons between classes and his other job, napping in his room. Bryson is an unreliable worker, his sleep patterns indiscernible.

Lately I’ve been noticing JP has been putting in a lot of extra time, taking two, three, even four naps a day. It’s cause for concern, because I worry about the stress of picking up so many shifts. Eventually we had to confront him.

“JP, you have to take it easy. We’ve all noticed how hard you’ve been working lately. We admire your resolve, but you’re overexerting yourself. And while it’s true we appreciate you picking up extra shifts, we need to work too.”

**

The other night Sean says, “So I read this book-well, I didn’t actually read the book but I read the prologue and…”

“Oh then you read the book,” I replied, encouragingly, throwing my hands into the air. “If you even read the back of the book then you’ve pretty much read and understood it. In fact, if the book is mentioned on someone’s facebook profile or has a quote from a book, then you’ve read it. So yeah man, you’ve read the book.” I’m nodding rapidly, impressed at my comprehension of such things, a firm belief in what I’ve just said.

Thoughtful pause before Sean begins anew. “So I read this book…”