40 Hours of Sleep.

Oh, if only sleep could be accumulated. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the productivity. Imagine the compounded interest.

Parents could spend more time with their newborns, students would be able to cram the night before, provided they slept in all day the previous Sunday because of their hangover, and beauty sleep could be postponed for the ugliness of wakey-tude.

I haven't worked out the DNA for all this yet, but I would say that if sleep were cumulative, you wouldn't be cranky if you went 48 consecutive hours without sleep provided you slept 12-16 hours previous to then. I would not be agitated by not being able to grip my dental floss right now. I would not find the sense of sound, touch and sight to be so grating on my every nerve.

Looking ahead, I think the possibility of starting a family is the biggest threat to my sleep time. Those in the know are aware that I sleep longer than doctor-prescribed hours and stay awake for long stretches. My sleep habits are pretty well established, so, in the event there's a baby to raise somewhere down the line, I don't want those first 6 months to be harrowing in the sense that if the baby's crying I won't be able to hear her/him and mommy won't be able to roust me out of bed. I'd like to have the opportunity to fail as a father in a conscious state, preferrably by speaking before I think (rather than drop the kid), and preferrably with a son, as most serial killers only have Mother issues and daughters tend to become exotic dancers or Paris Hilton if they have Daddy issues.

So, knowing all that, I should probably get to sleep and rest up for whatever comes my way.