Lisa Scottoline: Can you teach napping?

I don't have many talents, but I have one I wish I could use more.

I can take a nap anywhere, at any time.

Even now.

I just woke up. I'm not even kidding.

It's a gray afternoon and too cold for May, and I started to feel drowsy and relaxed.

I knew exactly what I needed.

Bradley Cooper.

Sorry not sorry.

Kidding not kidding.

I needed Bradley Cooper, but what I got was a nap.

I stretched out with the dogs on the couch and pretty soon we were all asleep, pretending we don't have to work for a living.

I love naps.

And I'm good at them.

Yet I know somebody who says she can't nap at all. She tries and tries, but she can't take a nap.

Which makes me wonder.

About myself.

I wonder why she can't nap and I can, so easily.

In fact, I can barely stay awake.

Maybe she's smarter, or more ambitious, or more important, and her mind is busier than mine, buzzing with big thoughts, formulating things to do, solving equations, and answering e-mail.

Not me.

I got nothing.

Remember Curly in The Three Stooges?  He said, "I'm trying to think, but nothing happens."

It's me.

Nyuk nyuk.

But my friend who can't nap is not alone. Evidently, a lot of people can't nap, so much so that there is actually a class for napping.

Did you hear about this?

It's a class that you can take with 45 other adults, and the instructor will teach you how to take a nap. The class is called Napercize because they stretch before they take their naps.

This would be my kind of cardio.

I would do great in that class.

Also in Eatercize.

I would crush in Eatercize.

But can you imagine taking a nap with 45 strangers?

I would rather nap with 45 dogs.

Because dogs you can trust.

Once I took a nap on a plane, and while I was asleep, the guy next to me got a blanket and covered me.

Dude, no.

But I'm not sure you can teach napping. I think it's in the DNA. Some families pass on math abilities, but The Flying Scottolines are congenitally sleepy.

Every night, Mother Mary took a nap on the couch and my father took a nap on the floor.

It was a great marriage until they both woke up.

Brother Frank can nap like a champ, and Daughter Francesca has inherited these valuable genes. Sometimes when she comes home, we eat lunch and then take a nap on the couch. We wake up and stretch like kittens, just in time for dinner and another nap.

I know. You think we're depressed.

But we're not.

We're relaxed.

When Francesca and I went on book tour last July, we would have two signings a day, one at noon and one at night, but in between, we would park the car somewhere and take a nap.

There's no nap like a car nap.

Extra points if you sleep with your mouth open.

Double extra points if you drool.

Drooling is proof of an awesome nap.

When I wake up from a nap with the dogs, I drool more than they do.

I mean, the couch is soaked.

The only problem is that the world has changed around The Slumbering Scottolines.

Nobody takes naps anymore.

People are running around like crazy, checking their phones and increasing their productivity.

Plus, if you close your eyes these days, you'll miss something, especially with so much political news. I took a few naps recently, and every time I woke up, somebody had gotten fired.

I think my napping is causing national unemployment.

So I promise to stay awake.

For as long as I can.

But now I gotta go.

It's time for Cakercise.

Look for Lisa and Francesca's new humor collection, "I've Got Sand in All the Wrong Places" and Lisa's new domestic thriller, "One Perfect Lie," Also, look for Lisa's new Rosato & DiNunzio novel, "Damaged," coming Aug. 15. lisa@scottoline.com.