Caffeine after midnight --> 16 hours asleep

Sleep is a constant topic of discussion on the night shift. "Are you going to flip to days this weekend?" "No Caffeine after midnight" or "I woke up at noon, and couldn't get back to sleep." are the conversation starters for the coworkers I spend my work-nights with. In general, we all feel like death warmed over by Saturday, and can barely put an entire sentence together without it turning into a word puzzle for the friend we're talking to. And then, the weekend comes! Wait, the weekend is almost gone . . . call your buddies and see who wants to go out for drinks on a Sunday night. Ok, so, no one? Too bad. I guess you could go have breakfast with a friend on Sunday morning and ramble incoherently about napkins, "I would this napkin were a time napkin!" And, all the while you are drooling on yourself as you try to stay awake with yet another cup of coffee. The caffeine works, but only if your goal is to not fall asleep. If you want to be alert and sociable, sleep is probably the better choice.

Easter is this Sunday. Imagine that Easter morning started on Friday at 10 PM after a pretty grueling workday (like you worked 3 hours overtime). Further imagine there being an Easter brunch at this time with your relatives. Follow the timeline here; we've left work late, 8PM, taken off at 10 PM to get to the gathering, and festivities last until around the equivalent of 5AM. Now, you get to go to bed. "Hey," you say, "if I go to bed now, my day will be starting again in only 3 hours!" I suppose you could sleep in until noon, that's a good 7 hours of sleep. But let's, for the sake of argument say that it is pitch black outside at noon, and your spouse will be getting ready for bed within the hour because they are going to work in the morning. Well, there's always the option to stay awake those 7 hours and then go to bed with the spouse. Of course, you will be completely unable to process any information for those 7 hours, your body will start exhibiting flu-like symptoms, and you will become a tad irritable (like, you will visualize the death of people who complain to you about being "tired" or "sleepy" because they don't have a freaking clue what it feels like). Me, I'm going to opt for the sleep until noon option. Though, to be clear, noon is actually 10 PM, and I will be going to bed around 3 in the afternoon. So, does this mess up my sleep schedule for the next day? Honestly, my plan is to sleep until 10 PM, take some Ambien, and sleep until 6AM so I can jump out of bed and get in my long bike ride (80 miles this time)! If you haven't slept for 16 hours straight before, try it. You wake up disoriented. Of course, if you are taking drugs to stay asleep, you generally don't want to take on many dangerous tasks in the first couple hours of your morning. I literally bump into walls.

I'm looking forward to this weekend. I intend to have a lot of fun at the Easter picnic, playing with my dogs, and chatting with my relatives. We might even get to play some softball. Very likely, I will play some Frisbee. There will be food, possibly a breakfast burrito in it for me. I am also looking forward to a seriously epic bike ride all around town. My only regret is that I will not be able to remember any of it. . .