Public Sleeping | Pad Patter 2.28

I think I am the same as you, only times I've ever really fallen asleep in public is while sunbathing at the beach or on a sun lounger around the pool on holidays. And I may occasionally have fallen asleep in the car when I have supposed to watching the OH play football lol.

 

The only time I remember sleeping in public was in 1996 on an airplane on my way to FL to be with my mother in her last days. 6 a.m. flight, had to leave here at 3:30 a.m. and was up late packing since it was a last minute flight. I had the window seat and rested my head against it and dozed for a few minutes. I was scheduled to go to FL 4 days later but was called down early and was working with the travel agent to get my flight changed to the next morning. Plans confirmed about 6 p.m. then I had to get things together and packed besides making arrangements for someone to check on the house while I was gone. So I was exhausted and mentally drained so the catnap was needed.

 

I was just going to post about the only time I remember sleeping in public and it also involved a flight to Florida. Back in the old days, there was no airport to Ft. Myers and we had to fly into Tampa and drive the rest of the way.

Our daughter was about 6 and we had a very early flight (out of Detroit Metro), so we went the night before and stayed at the airport Hilton (in the airport). So, our dd was sick ALL night - I mean ALL night. Neither one of us got any sleep and I get motion sickness so I have to take medication. On the flight, our dd finally got over her bug, but then I couldn't stay awake. I remember my hubby trying to get me to drink coffee - nothing worked. I could not stay awake. When we got to Tampa, he told me to wait at the luggage belt and get our luggage while he went to get the rental car. I sat down on the floor by the luggage belt and fell asleep right there and our luggage was gone by the time he got back. They had it locked in the office because it was "unclaimed".

I still remember how mad he got at me. That very day, one of our "family jokes" was started - "I gave you ONE job to do and you couldn't do it". We laugh about it now, but it wasn't funny at the time. I still don't know what happened that I could not stay awake. We figured that it had to have been the lack of sleep + the heavy medication I have to take for my motion sickness.

 

Kind of ironic... my flight was from Dayton to Ft Myers with no stops. They had built the large airport in 1983. But my first trip to Ft Myers in 1971, we flew to Tampa then took a puddle jumper to Page Field in Ft. Myers. I had 3 trips to Ft Myers in the 70's that were all Dayton-Tampa-Ft Myers. Took a break for quite a few years then started going again when my parents did the snowbird thing in Ft Myers in the early 90's.

 

My husband can sleep anytime, anywhere. I, on the other hand, can’t even sleep on long overnight flights even after taking Ambien. It would be me and the flight attendants (and hopefully the pilot) awake, and everyone else would be snoring away zzzz....

 

Isn't that ironic? Most people don't know that there was no Ft. Myers airport - well, I guess we didn't know about Page Field then. That would have been the best thing to do - I don't know why we never did that. I'm thinking that this must have happened in the early 80's. We were going down there in the late 70's too.

@HavaDrPepper - I was trying to refresh my memory and found this on Wikipedia: "Construction of the airport began in 1980; it opened on schedule on May 14, 1983, with a single 8400-ft runway. At the time of its opening, the airport was named Southwest Florida Regional Airport (the airport code RSW is short for "Regional South-West").[7]Delta Air Lines operated the first flight. The original terminal was located on the north side of the runway at the end of Chamberlin Parkway."

 

I fell asleep at a Venture's concert once! LOL
I have slept on a plane, a train, a bus, at campgrounds, and in my car. I like to sleep.

 

@Cherylndesigns I had to google when the big airport opened as well. Then I googled history of airports for Ft Myers and found a pdf document that went deep into it. Page Field actually has an interesting history and is still used to this day for general aviation and business traffic. Here is the wiki on it: Page Field - Wikipedia

Our flight in 1973 (I was wrong on the year) was on National. I still have the ticket holder/itinerary in a traditional scrapbook. We flew Delta from Dayton to Atlanta to Tampa then National to Ft Myers. National also had names on their planes... ours was "Donna" and you had to walk down the stairs to the tarmac. That was my first airplane flight which is probably why Mom put the stuff in my childhood scrapbook she made for me!

(Sorry @IntenseMagic for getting off topic!)

 

I wish I was more like my hubs. He can sleep anywhere, in the car, at the movies, at the beach...anywhere where he can sit or lie down for a few minutes, he can be out like a light. Not me. I can barely sleep at home (I'm awake numerous times throughout the night and rarely can nap during the day unless I'm absolutely exhausted and/or sick) and definitely can't sleep in public.

 

I don't generally like to sleep in public, but have occasionally on accident. Probably the most it happened was when I was a primary grades teacher in the 90's. Often when my husband and I would go out with friends, I'd doze off, I was so exhausted from my job.

I do sleep on planes. I feel safer there, with it being enclosed. Plus, when I fly it's usually 5 hours cross country. A few times it was across the Atlantic Ocean too.

 

The only time I've ever fallen asleep in public is when I was pregnant with the girls. I fell asleep in the cinema. I wouldn't care but I really wanted to see the film too... Husband let me sleep all the way through it because he knew I'd been struggling to sleep as it was.

But in general I can't sleep in public, even long haul flights I stay awake while the rest of my family sleep. I like to feel in control I guess and can't rest easily.

Unlike me, my husband could fall asleep any time, any place.

 

My husband can sleep anywhere. One time in college, he feel asleep on a couch in a dorm lobby. Someone tied his shoes together. Fortunately he saw it before he tried to stand up or walk. He still can sleep anywhere and has has slept on the hard floor in strange places.

 

Like you, I have slept in my car- napped waiting on people. And on airplanes!

 

I don't think I've ever fallen asleep on a flight, I haven't travelled abroad much and when we have we have had early morning flights out so have been wide awake. And then our return flights home have been the same, early morning so normally wide awake the whole flight. My husband can sleep anywhere though, we will be watching tv and he will nod off in seconds.

 

I have slept on planes, trains, boats, departure lounges, beaches, in my car.
I did not know this was a thing.
Ha. Anywhere anytime for me.

 

On the beach, dosed off on a plane, but I'm mostly guilty of napping in the car while waiting on a kid to finish an activity. Currently I spend a couple of hours a week waiting in my car while my grandson has basketball practice or a game ... no spectators in the gyms due to COVID restrictions. Although now that I have unlimited data on my phone and a couple of streaming services I'm usually watching some show or another.

 

I would have answered no to sleeping in public, but then I read your reply and yep... I've cat napped at the beach and also in the car waiting for a kid at practice too. I also technically slept in public in high school when we took a 24 hour long train ride to Colorado. I couldn't sleep in my chair, so my friend and I took our pillows to the dining car and slept in the floor there in the middle of the night. Lol.