#369 – Yawn
Posted on May 3, 2012 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comic
I freak out when I’m on a long car drive and realize I’m sleepy. I gotta pull over, walk around, get some snacks. Fortunately caffeine and something interesting to listen to will snap me out of it. I panic though because I generally can sleep anywhere if given the chance.
Tags: caffeine, car crash, sleepy
I can sleep anywhere, too, wherever I might be.
I can also lapse while driving and not know how I got 15 minutes further than before I blinked.
An episode I hope to never EVER repeat; at the end of a school in Cherry Point NC, nothing happening at the club, checked out of barracks, spent the night driving South through the wooded coast (back towards Beaufort SC). Fortunately, the entire road was 4-lanes/divided with gravel shoulders, and deserted, so I would [cruise on, hear gravel crunch, correct back to pavement, and repeat] until it was light out and I saw the huge bridge at Charleston SC approaching. Somebody was looking out for me that night fer shure!
My dad would start quoting Kipling, loudly, particularly the Ballad of Gunga Din.
Whoa!
That’s when you get your buddies to put together your CDs/MP3s playlists without telling you what’s on them. I have on my player things like the Red Army Chorus singing “Kalinka”, Dethklok, Bowie, just stuff that’s all over the place. Put it on shuffle, and you’ll never know if you’re going to hear Dave Brubek or Faith No More next. Of course your friends might think it’s funny to put on ten minutes of sudden screaming.
I don’t eat/drink caffeine at all, so a little bit of tea is usually enough to wake me up.
I sing along to the radio (when driving alone), that’s a sure way to stay aware for me. Of course, sometimes the radio seems determined to kill me as I groggily search for a song I know.
I had a few close calls driving 18 hours directly after a 12-hour shift. I learned my limits then; now when I get sleepy on long trips I pull over at the nearest rest stop or off-ramp, have a 20-minute nap (like you I can sleep almost anywhere), then get up and I’m good to drive for another two hours. Snacks also help but I’m stingy with my money on those, heh heh.
what legs?
SiriusXM is a god send for long trips. In particular, Radio Classics on channel 82 and most of the comedy channels are what I listen to when I feel sleepy.
Having driven multiple times on no sleep, I’ve found that my driving doesn’t really suffer from lack of sleep. Driving really focuses my attention so there is little risk of falling asleep.
A few months ago I drove a 17-hour round trip on 3 hours sleep after a full day of work (and by full I mean above 12 hours). Caffeine doesn’t really do much to me so I didn’t even bother. I think I ran the entire trip on a dozen glazed donuts – ate one about every hundred miles to keep the sugar up. I really had to pee but didn’t make a pitstop for 300 miles because the discomfort was helping keep me alert.