Old Mate at home will back me up on this: one of my very favourite pastimes is sleeping and, a bit like eating, I am very good at it.
In my younger days, I was a genius at sleeping for given periods of time in the most unusual places.
My dad always used to say that I would have made a great soldier as I could sleep anywhere and wake up on cue to whatever time I needed to.
I think the reason I had (and still have) this skill is because most of my working life, I had two jobs, so I was always tired.
I was famous for all the wrong reasons when I worked at electricity company SEQEB in the pole department where I was a passenger in more than one way.
It used to annoy the driver that as soon as we went out the gate, I would go to sleep with my head basically on the motor in our old cab-over truck and wake up just as we got to the job.
Same on the way home: sleep soundly until we turned the last corner before the depot and I would magically wake up.
It really annoyed my workmates to the point they would try going a different way home but I would still wake up.
I would also sleep at lunchtime at the depot on a slat bench, no problem.
That annoyed them as well.
Beer and sleeping is a whole other thing.
I remember going to a Grand Prix in Adelaide in a box on Stag Corner.
I made a pig of myself and was half-cut before the race had even started.
So, I snuck off and found a boardroom that someone wasn’t using and had a sleep under the table.
I then magically appeared back in the box halfway through the race, fresh as a daisy.
Now, having this rare talent is a curse when it malfunctions.
While I have never fallen asleep on the toilet, I have actually had a snooze in the bath, waking up in the middle of winter when my inner alarm was dulled by too much beer.
My worst malfunction was on a footy trip when I won a meat tray, took it back to the unit and decided to cook the roast and have a little power nap while I waited.
My mates came home, couldn’t wake me and had to climb over the balcony next door to get in and extinguish what was left of a charcoal roast.
I slept through the banging, the yelling and the smoke.
Maybe in another life I was a dwarf?
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Ashley Robinson is a columnist with Sunshine Coast News and My Weekly Preview. His views are his own.
