Frazz by Jef Mallett for January 19, 2024

I did my homework riding home on the bus. Then I went to my job. Then I catnapped.

We call it “hazenslaapje” which means hare nap. I think that fits better with the description, as a hare will always be very alert and take short naps. On the other hand, a cat in the wild, will probably be just as alert and quick to wake if necessary.

Humans can’t multitask, we time divide.

Multitasking’s a crock! One can only do one task at a time. You have to drop one to do another. Now, to grab another coffee….

I can take a catnap while reading the paper or watching TV. My doctor’s term is syncope.

From the way Mom described my daytime style in the 30’s, I don’t think I had time to nap after age 1. According to her, I got into everything, was constantly in motion, and accomplished little but chaos. Cats usually left in disgust.

But, she said when I was 4, someone gave me an adventure book and, from then on, peace reigned for long parts of each day. The person headed her prayer list for decades. : )

Local librarians, on the other hand, put me on their list – kids who were never satisfied at the slow pace of new episodes. That’s one problem that hasn’t changed. Start a new series, marathon read, fret until next one.

I assume that your cat was safe inside. When I was a teenager, I watched my cat sleep. In the house, nothing seemed to disturb him. But when he was on the porch, he woke every few minutes to some sound.

He’s right about multi-tasking. You cannot concentrate on two things at once; that’s why you lower the car radio volume when you’re searching for a street sign.

You are seriously funny, Jef.

He’s kind of young to be so cynical.

And then there are chinstrap penguins, which nap for about four seconds at a time for a total of about 11 hours a day.

Your cats got it all figured out.

Cats may snooze, but they can awaken instantly at need (and clear across the house in 2 seconds flat). As for multi-tasking, it has been proven that it causes reduced efficiency for each task. We only THINK that we’re doing better.

True and true I love this kid!

My wife is a hardcore reader. English lit major. Always bringing home a stack of books from the library each week. With the covid paranoia I asked her if there had been research on pathogens transmitted by public library books. I buy my books new or download them.

 The 6 greatest bargains in America:

 1) sunshine

 2) fresh air

 3) clean water

 4) public libraries

 5) public schools

 6) US Postal Service

I’d sooner expect a Mallett mouthpiece to say “dumb AND common.”

Here is something I just thought up. Do you suppose the word “catnap” came from seeing a cat coming down from a crazy “catnip” episode?

I’ll just show myself out.

Multitasking (a computer term) is NOT doing multiple things at one time. That’s multiprocessing. Multitasking is appearing to do multiple things at once by doing a little of each and moving on to the next one.