MONTREAL – The nation’s top sleep researchers made a joint statement earlier today announcing that they too have no goddamn idea what to do with their arms when trying to sleep.
Dr. Fran McMatton of McGill University told the press that though she and her colleagues had hoped for more positive news, the evidence was overwhelmingly to the contrary: “There’s really no two ways about it: these meat noodles we call “arms” are a tyranny that modern medicine is woefully ill-equipped to handle.”
Her associate Dr. Hank Jarvis, speaking from his research facility in Winnipeg agreed, saying, “We gave it our best shot but some things, like time travel or the appeal of Adam Levine, are bigger than science.”
McMatton and Jarvis led a team of researchers who explored numerous options for arm placement but ultimately found flaws in every possibility. For example, when lying on one’s side – a favourite pose among many amateur sleepers – one could keep the arm pinned between the torso and the mattress, a style that works for a maddeningly brief period before the arm goes completely numb.
Sleeping on the stomach provided some opportunities for comfort but at the expense of other parts of the body. If this is your chosen method of rest, Dr. Jarvis recommends having a eulogy prepared for your neck, as it will be rendered completely inoperative.
“Our results were just as confusing when considering sleeping on the back,” he added. “Do you keep the arms resting alongside the body as though lying in state? Or crossed over your chest also like your lying in state? Either way, you look like a fucking clown.”
Fascinatingly, they also found that in the rare event a subject found a comfortable position for their arms, it only ever occurred exactly three minutes before their alarm was set to go off. Dr. McMatton summed up the implication of these findings by stating, “No option is comfortable, you’ll never be comfortable, and what does it even matter? Eventually death comes for us all.”
The team’s efforts were not all in vain, however, as they were able to confirm that anyone who sleeps with socks on is absolutely a sociopath.
