Then you skip a lot of excitement that life offers. Like thinking "can I stay up for the whole drive home?" or wondering "how slowly can my mind crawl through simple tasks?"

First, when your drive home is from Carlsbad to San Diego, trying to stay awake is a little too exciting a game. Second, The Boss tends to frown upon it when I have to chuck a plate and redo an entire experiment because my concentration is faulty.

Of course, Kaya thinks I should have spent the time petting her, feeding her, and letting her drool on me,

She's right. After all, she's older than you relatively speaking. ;)