Punctuation; spelling, grammar, diacritical marks; so crucial to our ability to interpret the world. Take that post title, for example, and imagine that if instead of 7:11 I were referring to waking up in a 7-Eleven convenience store. Both are possible, in the real world, but one would be pretty far preferable to the other in terms of personal comfort. And if you know me, you know that I mean waking up in the middle of a lousy little quick-stop shop, unless we’re talking opening my eyes at 19.11, or 7:11 post meridiem. Sorry, Mornings, I just can’t seem to learn to love you.

The idea of finding myself in the snack food aisle of a convenience store when I opened my sleepy eyes is not, perhaps, ideal either. For any number of reasons, it could prove unsettling, if not dangerous. But I’m still leaning toward it as the better alternative, if I had to choose. Sleep calls to me.

I probably should consider where it means I went to sleep in the first place, if I’m waking up surrounded by small packages of foods with shelf lives longer than the motor oil that’s sold in the next aisle. Was time travel involved? If so, I can only hope that I went backward and thus gained some extra snooze time, or so far into the future that there is already a cure for what I will have contracted by lying on the floor where so many strangers have trod, sneezed, and drooled. But I’m still willing to consider it a worthy risk, because that’s just how important my nap time is to me.

Perhaps it’s better to let go of the whole conundrum and assume that I was merely inspired by a glance at the clock when I woke mid-sleep to think of such things at all. Odd things can happen when anything awakens one in the midst of heavy slumber. I’d work on this puzzle further, honestly…if I weren’t so…sllleeeeeeeepy…