Good night, sweet hallucinations

Last week, the National Sleep Foundation released a report claiming that three-fourths of American adults suffer from sleep problems. The Associated Press quoted Richard Gelula, the foundation's CEO, as saying, "People who sleep well, in general, are happier and healthier. ... But when sleep is poor or inadequate, people feel tired or fatigued, their social and intimate relationships suffer, work productivity is negatively affected, and they make our roads more dangerous by driving while sleepy and less alert."\nNegatively affected? More dangerous?\nWhat a load of hooey! \nEveryone knows that sleep is a myth, a scam, a crock, a... a... load of hooey. Hey, what do I look like, a thesaurus?\nNo, if you waste your time with sleep, you'll miss the best stuff in life -- all of which, experts know, usually happens in the two hours before you have to get up for work.\nAs a charter member of the International Society for the Insomniacal Arts, I'd like to share with you some of the wonders you'll never experience if you give in to the temptation of your base animal instinct for unconsciousness:\n• For the gourmets out there, not sleeping provides culinary benefits unknown in the waking world. For example, when else could you get fresher mutton but in the dead of night? Racing across verdant fields under a full moon, vaulting over fences, snatching up sheep, the cool air on your naked skin -- ahh, there's no better feeling. Huh? Why naked? Uhh, scared sheep taste better.\n• If you get a regular amount of sleep, you'll miss out on the finest of hallucinations: the Sock Pixies, the Queen of Waffles, the things that live under the carpet, the boy that delivers the newspaper. Of course, you shouldn't get too carried away; there are some weirdos who think paperboys actually exist.\n• The point has been made before elsewhere, but really, the best television is on late at night. How else could you find out that an unsterilized toothbrush might kill you? Or that there are thousands of hot, young college girls out there, waiting to bare all just for you? Or that you could be making millions of dollars while only working three days a week? Believe me, until I started watching infomercials, I had no idea my life was so incomplete and unfulfilling.\n• If you don't stay up, how will you ever escape that thing in your closet? It stays up all night, drooling, just waiting to pounce as soon as you shut off the lights. But, boy, will it be surprised when you never do. In fact, if you're any sort of humanitarian, you'll protect your neighbors by staying up all night, every night, playing Metallica's "Ride the Lightning" at maximum volume. Sure, they might complain, but it's for their own good.\n• But the benefits aren't restricted to nighttime. Resisting the lure of sleep injects excitement into an otherwise mundane life. After all, what's more spontaneous than never knowing where you'll wake up? Some people blow hundreds of dollars a month in drinks just to get the same experience! Why else did they invent cruise control? And besides, do you really want to be awake for the entire time you spend at work or in class? I didn't think so. Hey, there's no spelling "weekdays" without "daze."\nYes, it's a brave new world for those of us who refuse to surrender our eight hours a day to just lying around like a log, doing nothing, taking up space. \nHey, you can even use it to get work done -- but really, where's the fun in that?