Now that spring break has started, I'm back to my routine of getting up around four in order to write and get other work done before my wife and sons wake. As a result, I tend to nod off around noon.

Normally, I'll go to my office and take a nap on the sofa, but the living room was just starting to get some good sunlight, so I decided to crash there.

I'm fast asleep when an alarm goes off, shocking me into an agitated state of murky awareness like I'd just been zapped with a defibrillator. I pick up my phone, thinking that I must have set the alarm by accident . . . when "thunk" . . . I hear the microwave door being shut. It was the microwave chime that woke me.

Half awake, I lumber over to the kitchen and find my wife drinking coffee.

"You're up already? You should go back to sleep."

"How long was I asleep?"

"Only five minutes."

I let out a groan, wave her away, then drag myself back to my office.

As I'm walking down the hallways, she tells me that she's going to take a nap herself. It's tempting to wake her up in ten minutes, but the woman can sleep through earthquakes and Cat-5 typhoons.