There’s currently teenage-angst-like culture right now surrounding napping, Chipotle, loving tacos, and hating people (preferring animals?) that’s semi-concerning for our generation. And likewise horribly cringe-worthy. It's the new "mom, it’s just a phase" phase. This article, though, isn’t a holy praise to napping or a love letter to laziness. It's not part of the Chipotle-and-memes-are-my-life Netflix generation. Here are merely some acute observations I’ve made on societal norms involving public places and sleeping.

1. On the beach

This Christmas, I went to Florida to stay with my grandparents, and I was reminded how magical a place is where the waves met the sand. If you are laying on a couch and watching TV for hours a day, society calls you lazy. But, now, trade that couch for a striped beach towel, and the TV for a good ol' fashion novel, and you can acceptably spend the day horizontal.

Bonus, if you read something that looks somewhat-educational (I read Katy Tur’s memoir Unbelievable), your grandparents will actually REVERE you for laying around all day when you’re holding a book like that.

Extra bonus, if you’re bored during a conversation with a fellow beach-goer, you can just close your eyes in the middle of their sentence! Because hey, it’s the beach. The “sun” is wearing you out…

2. In the middle of the airport

Universally, everyone is tired in the airport; there is kind of an agreement amongst humanity that we all are tired from traveling, so it’s totally OK if you close your eyes (because the person next to you was thinking of doing the same thing…). The airport is the only place you can see a grown man in a suit, curled up in a sleeping baby position across the chairs surrounding gate C5.

3. After a holiday meal, if you are a toddler

How nice was it when you could just snarf down some turkey and a piece of pumpkin pie, then shut your eyes without having to converse with Aunt Sue?

4. In lecture hall

Full on sleeping in your high school 20-person English class would have been super embarrassing. I still cringe at the times when my eyes were unbearably heavy and I felt myself doing that half-neck-bobbing-half-awake thing, and knowing everyone could see me across the “U” shape. In college, though, a girl next to me actually brought a blanket to class.

5. In your dorm lounge

This is a delightful photo of my friend Flannery getting practically a full night’s sleep during a 3-hour nap in our shared lounge.

Another fellow Lounge Napper, Kathleen.