I was probably the only four-year old American boy who cried when Generalisimo Francisco Franco died. The waterworks surprised both my parents and me, and for a long time I have been trying to figure out why.

Thanks to years of psychoanalysis and the wisdom of my 30+ years I have at least discovered the reason why the death of a fascist dictator from a country I had never visited caused me to cry: I wanted Spain to rule the world.  As I grew older I forgot about El Generalisimo but still found my life full of Spain and things Spanish. I ended up taking four years of Spanish in high school, traveling to Spain as part of a high school class trip, minoring in Spanish in college and returning to Spain several times since. Until recently, I thought it was the language with its th’s instead s’s, tapas, sangria, the art of Picasso and Miro, the architecture of Gaudi, the films of Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz (in the days of Jamon, Jamon and Abres Sus Ojos before she became the latest in a long line of beards for Tom Cruise) that attracted me to Spain. Those things were and still are great. But what truly attracted me to all things Spanish was the reason I wanted El Generalisimo to rule the world - the siesta, the mid-day nap for which Spain is famous. I wanted Franco to rule the world and make the siesta the law of the land. How could anyone not love that? Even today I would give up a few personal freedoms and democracy for being able to have government-mandated mid-day naps. Wouldn’t you?

Sadly, El Generalisimo is no longer with us, and, thirty years after his death, I still get upset by this. Making matters worse, Chevy Chase taunts me periodically, often calling while I am napping and leaving his famous line from Weekend Update on my answering machine: “This just in. Generalisimo Francisco Franco is still dead.” While this is good natured ribbing between friends, I perhaps go too far in my retaliation: I read reviews of his talk show on his answering machine. Even sadder than Chevy’s talk show is the fact that as of January 1, 2006, the Spanish government has reduced the lunch break of its employees from two-three hours to one hour. Oh, the horror! I weep for you, government employees of Espana!

From the foregoing you should have figured out that I like to nap. Growing up I would take any and every opportunity to nap - before chores, during chores, after chores, while in the shower and as long as possible on the weekend. Unfortunately, during the weekend naps I was often awakened by my father saying, “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Your beauty rest is over. You’re pretty enough as it is. Now get up and be productive.” My napping was considered laziness by my very industrious father, but I defended my need (okay, desire) to sleep by claiming I had mono. When that was not successful, I claimed I had narcolepsy. To bolster this claim I took to “falling asleep” at odd times - while playing video games, while in the bathroom, during an eye examination.  Despite the cleverness of this idea my execution leaved something to be desired. Once I feigned falling asleep by plopping my face down, mid-sentence, into a scalding hot chicken pot pie at the dinner table. Pretending to fall asleep during a driving test was not one of my wisest choices either. I obviously failed the driving test and then spent the next several months visiting doctors to obtain enough proof to convince the DMV that I did not have narcolepsy and to not ban me from getting a driver’s license.

While working on my napping skills during high school I had an idol - Lamar from Spanish class my freshman year. Lamar was football player and one of the upper classmen who taunted me, the lone freshman in the class, by calling me el pez, which was short for el pescado. (I knew this meant “fish” for “freshman” but I secretly feared it meant they thought I looked like Abe Vigoda who played a character named “Fish” on the television show Barney Miller. After several days of this taunting I ran to the bathroom to make sure this was not the case. My ability attract women was already severely debilitated by bad skin and what was, in retrospect, the most unfortunate pair of glasses imaginable and the last thing I needed was to look like Abe Vigoda in any way. A proclivity for wearing ties in high school did not help my chances with the ladies either.) 

Despite the taunting, I idolized Lamar for a skill that he had: he was able to fall asleep sitting straight up without having his head fall and jerk him away. This obviously came from the thick neck he had acquired through natural selection and developed further through years of football. Once I discovered his secret I knew I had to get me one too. So, I spent hours alone in my room lifting weights to strengthen my neck muscles. Unfortunately, this was the days before the Internet and I devised my work-out routine without consulting any sources or a personal trainer. The end result was that I ended up elongating my neck rather than widening it. Now, my head-flops begin from a higher elevation and the jerk awake is even more startling.

While my neck still has not become any wider, my napping skills have improved and have been called “impressive”, and my naps have even been called “epic” or, more negatively,  “decadent” by those not so generous.  While those adjectives are spot on, a nap for me is not just a nap. Far from it, in fact. My years of napping, thinking about napping, scheming to nap and wanting to nap have allowed me to develop the following first-of-its-kind taxonomy of napping. Call it “A Field Guide to Naps.”

1.   The Post-Prandial Nap - This nap is one of the most common to the general public. It usually occurs after a big meal, say a brunch on a rainy Sunday when the depressing news in the Times, the weather and Eggs Benedict conspire to make the rest of the day totally unproductive. The most popular Post-Prandial Nap is, of course, the after-Thanksgiving meal nap. Who hasn’t enjoyed this? I will tell you who:  the women in my family while I was growing up. It seemed the men always had the opportunity to fall asleep on the couch while watching the Cowboys beat somebody and/or the Lions get beaten while the women had to clean up. That’s the South for you. I’ve been trying to implement this same practice in California, but to no avail.

2.   Offensive Naps - This one I have patented. On the surface it might appear a little decadent, but it serves a very important purposes. Basically, this is a nap that is taken before the need for a nap comes on. On the weekends I know I will need a nap around 1:00 or 2:00 PM. So, to put off put off that nap, I’ll take a mid-morning nap, usually around the same time as Jack, my nine-month old son, takes his first nap of the day. I can usually make it the rest of the day without a nap by offensively napping. But, I have been known to take advantage of Jack’s second nap by taking my own second nap. (This, I think, is where “decadent” comes in.)

3.   Defensive Naps - Next to the Post-Prandial Naps, these are the most common. You’re tired, you’ve worked too much or stayed out too late and you need a nap. End of story.

4.   Secret Naps - These could be a sub-set of Defensive Naps but their location and stealth put them in a category all their own. You’ve stayed out too late on a school night or you’re exhausted from working a lot and you need a nap. But it is the middle of the work-day so what do you do? If you are lucky and live close to work, you can make it home for a power nap and get back to work in about an hour. If you are not so fortunate and you work in SF but live in the East Bay or live elsewhere and you have a 45 minute commute by car, you have to be a little more resourceful. One option is to power nap in your car. If your car is in cool, dark garage, great. If, however, you live in Houston or Arizona, you could die trying this and it is not recommended.

If you work in a central business district and you lack a car, I give you the following advice: get friendly with some hotel workers. Not necessarily pull an Owen Wilson from Bottle Rocket and hook up with a hotel maid (unless, of course, that is your thing), but chat up some front desk folks and/or maids, introduce them to a few friends of yours by the name of Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson, Grant or Benjamin and score yourself an empty hotel room for a secret mid-day power nap. For those of you in the Financial District/Union Square  areas of San Francisco I provide to you below the prices I had negotiated with various hotel employees before moving to the OC. You’re price may vary depending on frequency of your naps and your individual negotiation skills.

Club Quarters (above the Elephant & Castle Pub): $10

Hotel Monaco: $10 plus a venti mocha from Starbucks

Hyatt - Embarcadero: $15 plus a Cuban sandwich from Birleys in Embarcadero 4

Sir Francis Drake: $20

The Omni: $25

The Four Seasons: $35

If those prices are too steep, you’ll need to get creative. You can hop on BART and ride it all the way to Pittsburg and back. A friend of mine used to take power naps at work by sitting in the bathroom stall. Secluded benches are good, but if you are in San Francisco, you’ll likely need to fight with a homeless person for the bench. For five bucks you can usually forego the fisticuffs, but for sanitation purposes you’ll need to make sure you bring your own newspapers.

5.   Accidental Naps- You come home from work, perhaps a bit tired with no plans, plop on the couch, flip through the all the cable channels, find nothing on, pick up a magazine, start reading an article and find yourself getting sleepy. You don’t think about it, you don’t fight it, you just go with. You wake up several hours, still in your work clothes, surprised to find it dark outside and that you fell asleep for so long. That is an accidental nap.  A sub-set of this category is known to parents of infants. You start to rock your baby to sleep for his/her nap in a rocking chair and you accidentally fall asleep before the baby does. This usually does not make your spouse very happy, so watch out for this one.

6.   Vacation Naps - These are doubly sweet because you are on vacation. The ingredients will vary person to person for the ideal conditions but mine include: a pina colada, a book, an umbrella, a minimum of four towels, Moby on the iPod, and about ten minutes.

Yes, with all of this napping, it is amazing that I get anything done.

My excessive napping may put me out of the norm, but I like to think I am in good company, nonetheless. The most famous devotee of the nap that comes to mind is Harry Truman. He often took naps while he was President. Granted, he had World War II, had to make the decision to drop two atom bombs and the Korean conflict to deal with and rightly deserved all the rest he could get. (We’ll let the question of what I do to deserve frequent and long naps go unasked.) 

We may have already given up some personal freedoms, what with the NSA listening to our calls and all. However, I say, “fine, let them listen.” I don’t have much for them to listen to. More than likely, I’ll be taking a nap rather than talking on the phone. And I will enjoy that nap - but I just wish I could be awake to enjoy it more.

If you need more napping tips, contact Terry at fortyfootbuffet@yahoo.com.