Martha Bolton - Your Best Nap Now: 7 Steps to Nodding Off at Your Full Potential

YOUR
BEST NAP
NOW

BOOKS BY MARTHA BOLTON
FROM BETHANY HOUSE PUBLISHERS

Didnt My Skin Used to Fit?

I Think, Therefore I Have a Headache!

Cooking With Hot Flashes

Growing Your Own Turtleneck

Martha Bolton

YOUR
BEST NAP
NOW

Steps to Nodding Off
at Your Full Potential

Your Best Nap Now
Copyright 2009
Martha Bolton

Cover design by Dan Pitts
Cover and interior illustrations by Daniel Vasconcellos

Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bolton, Martha.
Your best nap now : 7 steps to nodding off at your full potential / Martha Bolton.

p. cm.

Summary: Comedienne Martha Bolton mixes humorous anecdotes about life after fifty with touching stories about what lifes all about to help ease the way through middle ageProvided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-7642-0309-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. AgingHumor. I. Title.

PN6231.A43B657 2009
814'.54dc22

2008051212

To Evelyn...

a friend with endless encouragement and impeccable timing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Martha Bolton is a full-time comedy writer and author of more than fifty books, including Didnt My Skin Used to Fit? She was a staff writer for Bob Hope for fifteen years and has also written for Phyllis Diller, Wayne Newtons USO show, Ann Jillian, Jeff Allen, and many other entertainers. Her writing has appeared in Readers Digest, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Brio magazine. She has received four Angel Awards and an Emmy nomination. She and her husband live in Tennessee.

Contents

Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.

(seen on a bumper sticker)

STEP ONE:
Enlarge Your
Font

United we stand, divided we fall.

Patrick Henry

And without our glasses we see nothing at all.

Martha Bolton

There has been a lot of debate over which translation of the Bible is the most accurate. Some people insist that it is the King James Version, while others are equally convinced that one of the more modern translations is most accurate. Their reasoning is that since modern English is easier to comprehend, it leaves less room for errors of interpretation.

However, more and more biblical scholars are beginning to come to a different conclusion, the same one that I reached some years ago. Unequivocally, the most accurate translation of the Bible is Large Print.

In fact, after the age of fifty, the most accurate version of anything is the one in large print. If youve ever tried to read a map or the fine print on a bottle of medicine, you know what Im talking about.

Thankfully, publishers and some pharmaceutical companies are answering this need by bringing out more books, magazines, newspapers, and pharmaceutical instructions in bigger fonts. Even some restaurants now provide large-print versions of their menus.

I believe the retiring baby boomer generation is driving this movement. Never before has there been such a crowd of people hitting retirement age at one time. Many companies are just now realizing this sizeable marketing demographic exists.

We need to realize it, too. We have power, people! Think of how many changes we could get made in society if we would just pool our resources and our energies. We are not our parents generation. We want to live differently in our retirement. We dont want to sit in our rocking chairs and watch the neighborsand our livesgo by. Not that theres anything wrong with a sedentary lifestyle. Im planning on incorporating a little sedentary into my own lifestyle someday. Theres a rocking chair somewhere with my name on it, and Im going to spend a lot of time rocking it into a pile of splinters when the time comes.

But Im not ready for that assignment yet. Right now Ive got too much to see and do. And one of the things I enjoy doing is seeing. And when the print is larger, it makes that process so much easier.

So thanks, Bible publishers, for offering us large print. Thanks, Readers Digest and other magazines, for enlarging your fonts, too. Thanks, map creators, for supersizing your print so that Ive ended up in Cleveland, where I had intended to go, and not Charleston, which wasnt in my travel plans at that time. Thanks, pharmaceutical companies, for making your instructions a little easier to read so I take my medicines as prescribed. After all, there is a huge difference between Take two pills and Make two pies. (Frankly, I prefer the latter, but that probably wont do a lot to help my thyroid.)

English, Spanish, German, French, and every other tongue on the earththey all have their beauty. But Im holding on to hope that one day soon, Large Print will be the universal language.

Know, first, who you are;
and then adorn yourself accordingly.

Epictecus

And always remember
Supp-Hose and hot pants dont mix.

Martha Bolton

I bought a new pair of jeans the other day, but there is a problem. Its not that I dont like them. I do. Theyre a good fit and theyre stylish. The problem is, Im not all that fond of their brand name. I wont share it here because I dont want to cast the company in a bad light. Like I said, they do make a very good product. But their name isnt something I want embroidered across my hips. It isnt the name of a well-known designer like Gloria Vanderbilt or Versace. Its not a cool name like 7 For All Mankind or even Lucky.

Their brand name is, well, its a type of building. Thats right a building. I wont say what kind of buildingagain, so I dont embarrass the company. But I will give you a hint. Its something like Condo. Now I ask you, would you really want to wear a pair of jeans that has the word Condo written on the back pocket?

Whats next? Arena? Or Coliseum (spoken with an Italian accent, of course)? Spacious Estates?

Is the day coming when well have to buy our jeans from draftsmen, wholl design our fit and then have to submit their plans to our citys building committee? Will we one day see Frank Lloyd Wright jeans? Will they do away with sizes like 8, 10, and 12, and make us buy our jeans by square footage? Or acreage? If we buy a matching top, would that be considered adding a second story? If someone borrows our jeans, is that trespassing?

And what about the boomer generation? Are they going to design a pair of jeans specifically for those senior men who prefer wearing their waistband closer to their armpits, and call them High Rises?