Josh Kriegel catches up on sleep on the El train to Chicago.

Cherub Toby Hollis grins at Josh Kriegel, sleeping on the train.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five…

Just five more seconds. I’ll get up in five seconds, Josh. I promise. Okay, keep counting...

Four, three, two, one, one-half, one-quarter, one-eighth, one-sixteenth…

I fall back asleep. Damn it.

I wake up at 9:56 a.m. to a text message from fellow cherub Alex Burness. Without even looking at the time, I can tell I overslept. The sun looks abnormally bright for 9 a.m., and my body feels strangely refreshed. Still, I am hopeful that the sun and my body are just playing some sort of cruel, sadistic trick on me. I look at the text message:

“Did you oversleep?”

I knew it. Instead of five extra seconds of precious sleep, I got 56 minutes. That’s 331 more seconds than I intended. I text him back:

“Did they notice?”

Awaiting a response, I lie in my bed scheming. What is the best way to enter the lecture hall unnoticed? Ideas flow through my head:

I could coordinate with Alex and have him create a distraction by throwing his Frisbee across the room as I swiftly enter the premises.

I could leave my backpack outside and play it off as though I were just in the bathroom. This would require quick reaction time as I would need to locate an empty seat immediately upon arrival and act with little hesitation.

I could go to the bathroom and turn the sink on, then walk in with confidence and say, “There’s something wrong with the sink. Someone should really fix that.”

My phone buzzes.

“They are taking roll. You is (expletive)ed.”

Great. Now what? Unless I can invent some sort of invisibility cloak in the next five minutes, then Alex is right. I really am (expletive)ed.

So I get dressed. I take my time because what’s another five minutes when I’m already an hour late? Not much, that’s what.

I head over to Fisk.

Yes, I decided to swallow my pride on that fateful Monday morning. I marched into the lecture hall one hour and six minutes late with my head held high. Everyone’s eyes turned toward me and in my peripheral vision I could see Alex. With a smug Heath Ledger-esque smile tattooed on his face, he looked at me as if to say, “I told you so.”

I periodically see his face in my dreams, looking at me with that same sinister grin.

And so I accepted my punishment. Ironically, the punishment I received for sleeping 56 minutes late had me waking up at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning. In total, I lost about five hours and four minutes of sleep. All I wanted was an extra five seconds.