Is there a more optimistically ridiculous device than the “Snooze Alarm?” It’s a device that makes big promises — more sleep!
This is a lie. It rarely actually delivers any. The “snooze button” is a device added to an alarm clock that typically allows a user an additional nine minutes of wholly unsatisfying not-even-to-stage one. It is also a device that allows the average user to believe that he/she can actually stop time.
Just one slap
Unlike Yours Truly, Mr. Wonderful actually amounted to something. This means that he has to set an alarm to get up at the crack of dark. This means that each cold, inky black morning, I’m adrift in dreamland, before being rudely startled awake by the “Bleet-Bleet-Pounding-In-Your-Brain-Bleet-Bleet” of The Most Annoying Alarm Clock In The History Of the World (Patent Pending).
Knowing that both of us are enthusiastic Snooze Alarm slappers from way back, we took the added step to move the alarm clock allllll the way across the bedroom. This vast distance of 12 feet means that one of us must arise — if not awake — and stumble across the room to pound on the top of the alarm clock to MAKE IT STOP!
This someone is always me. Having beaten the clock into submission, I will announce the time like the crankiest town crier ever, “It’s 5:15ish” then stumble back across the room, collapsing into the bed having vanquished the beast to return to the cozy embrace of blissful slumber.
For approximately nine minutes of fitful, unrefreshing rest.
Then the “Bleet-Bleet-Pounding-In-Your-Brain-Bleet-Bleet” cycle starts all over again.
Rise and shine
My morning reports go like this:
Stumble, snort, jostle the mattress, bark ‘It’s 5:15ish!’ then back under the covers.
Ahhhh sweet pillow how I’ve missed you …
“Bleet-Bleet-Pounding-In-Your-Brain-Bleet-Bleet”
Oh for the Love of …”
Stumble, slap clock, stumble back, snort “it’s 5:30 or thereabouts.”
Startle, stumble, slap, stumble, snooze, startle, repeat.
Frankly, all this waking up is EXHAUSTING.
Mr. Wonderful will aim to actually arise at or about 5:30 a.m. To accomplish this he will set the clock for midnight.
Some nights I swear I spend a solid hour or six just slapping the Snooze Button. I announce the time ominously — if not a bit vaguely because he generally has the alarm clock set ahead so who the heck really knows what time it is anyway?
Throughout it all, Mr. Wonderful sleeps like a rock.
Anticipation
It’s gotten so that the anticipation of the of The Most Annoying Alarm Clock In The History Of the World (Patent Pending) with a pile drive into the brain can have me lying wide awake in clenched anticipation.
I swear on more than one occasion the split-second “click” that precedes the din is what startled me awake.
I’ve heard of the invention of an alarm clock that actually throws itself off your dresser or nightstand and rolls merrily around on the floor, forcing you to catch it to MAKE IT STOP and thus successfully waking you up.
I can only imagine. I’d have to shoot it.
Meanwhile, I continue to do the alarm clock dance, even on days when the children and I don’t even have to be awake at a certain hour. It seems the least I can do for a man who works so hard for us.
I’d like to think I’m marginally more soothing to him with my wifely voice and announcements of time, than the bleet of that infernal alarm. I’m kind of a crank in the morning, so I could be kidding myself.
Postscript:
My columns are written and filed a week in advance of the print date. The night I drafted this I went to bed fully intended to file it, “as is” the next morning: Good Friday.
The day off from school and work meant sleepovers for the children and sleeping in for Mr. Wonderful and me. I had anticipated enjoying a rare moment of blissful, alarm-free slumber (or so I thought).
That morning, in the wee hours I awoke to the distant bleating. Stumbling across the hall (uncharted a.m. territory!) I found GirlWonder’s alarm clock, sitting smack in the middle of her bedroom floor, merrily blaring away.
How does that even happen? This just proves what I’ve always suspected. The Lord — and the Universe — has a good sense of humor. I fought the Snooze Alarm and the Snooze Alarm won.
I continue to sleep with one eye — and ear — open.
