#ScienceNStuff
Lack of Sleep Kills
your ability to fend off laser nuggets
[The following is a transcript of an interview with world-renowned sleep expert Dr. Horatio P. Snelz, Ph.D. Due to a technical error, we only recorded Dr. Snelz’s side of the conversation.]
Associated Press— [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — We genuinely recommend seven to eight hours a night.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — [laughs] Of course, that’s unrealistic if you have a toddler. The best you can hope for is two uninterrupted hours at a time. But that’s also true of sleep.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — Sleep Number 47. Raise settings to 65 if she weighs over 300 lbs (136 kg).
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — Mash potatoes with gravy. Stuffing, cranberry sauce, and a double helping of smoked turkey. Turkey contains the amino acid Tryptophan which aids digestion. However, it’s a myth that Tryptophan is why you fall asleep after the Thanksgiving meal.
The reality is after a light snack of 3000 calories; your body shuts down everything but breathing and digestion.
It’s similar to that classic sci-fi movie that even non-nerds remember. In Outer Space Trek Wars IV, insectoid centaurs from Planet Dysantrodiclazt fire their laser nuggets at Captain Kristen Stark’s galactic death vessel. The resulting damage to the fusion drive leaves the HMS Rascal operating on emergency batteries.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — Benedict Cumberbatch. Not any of the damn prequels.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — Lack of sleep is proven to reduce intelligence to a sub-human capacity where single men believe it’s a magical idea to dm pictures of their penises to strangers on dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, or Salesforce.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz—Never.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — There was that time in high school when Ryan O’Shey thought he would win Shelby Janikowski’s affection by leaving a frozen muskrat in her mailbox.
That’s not a euphemism. We drove to her farm and stuffed the petrified marsupial into the mail slot. ¹
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz—It was after midnight, and the roads were especially icy.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — Country kids know how to party on prom night.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — I was waiting patiently for this question. I’ll try to simplify as best as I can.
Stage 1 — Awake
Stage 2 — Voting on health care legislation
Stage 3 — Sleeping, but sounds no louder than .5 decibels still wake your youngest child. You spend the next two hours showing her irrefutable empirical evidence that a demonic My Little Pony is not hiding under the bed. She does not believe you.
Stage 4 — REM Sleep. It’s the end of the world as we know it for your consciousness. The brain enters the man on the moon stage of neural activity, firing neurotransmitters like a priest losing his religion. Everybody hurts, but this temporary mental discomfort is necessary. Without REM, no awake, alert, shiny, happy people exist. ²
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — Of course. Mark Suroviec, M.Ed., wrote the definitive treatise on interpreting dreams.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz —You asked the million-dollar question. Examples include exercise, driving, and operating heavy machinery. Even sexual performance with your partner is diminished.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — Which partner did you ask? My spouse, my business partner, or my pickleball mate?
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — My performance left her wanting? McKenzie would say that. Talk about a woman who should have never left the kitchen.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — I am NOT sexist. It’s a pickleball joke. The blue area behind the pickleball net behind net is called the kitchen. The slower, weaker, more delicate partner guards the kitchen, while the faster, stronger, and more aggressive player — Oh, I see what you mean.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz —I’m fully aware that when you have to explain the joke, it’s no longer funny.
AP — [recording error]
Dr. Snelz — Are you f***ing serious? This interview is over.
Footnotes
¹ Mail, not male — True story — Ryan found mostly-intact roadkill and convinced several #friends to help him deliver the gift of loveable nightmares. Unfortunately, Ryan’s abysmal display of romantic courtship did not woo Shelby as intended. It was also the night I learned that you finish toilet papering a house first and then egg the house. Eggs are MUCH LOUDER than toilet paper.
² Do you ever think of specific people when you write? I hope Ginger Cook appreciates the hidden song title bit.
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