Approved napping

"it's time to move to Spain," I told the Hero.

I had been contemplating such a move for roughly 47 seconds, which is the amount of time it took me to read an article about the town of Ador, Spain. The mayor of this excellent place has declared 2-5 p.m. an official siesta time for the entire town. Every day.

Sign me up. Please.

A former coworker so appreciates her sleep time that she admitted she sometimes wakes up in the morning and thinks, "Maybe I can take a nap later." She never actually gets that nap. But in Ador, you could wake up every day and think this. And it would actually happen.

So please please please sign me up.

I am not ashamed to admit, with my coworker, that I adore sleep. This is not a popular platform in our society. It's dangerously close to saying I adore laziness.* It has become almost an obsession with Americans to see who can survive on the least amount of sleep. "I only get 4 hours of sleep a night. Feel great." "Oh, yeah? I only sleep every other week."

As a result many of us are sleep deprived, which only makes us more determined to not sleep, lest we fall further behind in whatever it is we are attempting to accomplish on too little sleep. And if sleeping at night, when one is supposed to sleep, is looked down on, the idea of a nap—sleeping in the middle of one's uber-productive day—is simply scandalous.

But not in Ador, apparently. While sleep deprivation does not seem to be the motivation behind the mayor's nap proclamation—he is more concerned about heat exhaustion among people working in the fields, although the siesta time would apply to everyone—he refuses to let the idea of uber-productivity interfere with the good sense of a midday rest.

So off to Spain, I say. And sign up my coworker too.

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*Although we admit that on a cold, blustery winter day, when the sun has refused to shine for weeks, yes, laziness becomes quite attractive.