14 November 2011

alarum is actually a word

I am having an alarm clock problem.

I really hate alarm clocks.

Actually, I don't own an alarm clock. What I own is an old mobile phone, which automatically updates time and date with the towers, but no longer bears a calling plan. I set the alarm on it, and it wakes me up.

The reason I prefer this method to an alarm clock is two-fold: first, I despise that beep-beep-beep of an alarm clock (radio probably wouldn't wake me up unless it was really loud, because it's so easy to incorporate into a dream), and second, I get kind of panicky about how much time I have left to sleep and why am I not sleeping oh no the night is almost over and I haven't gotten enough sleep help help help if I have a clock with visible numbers during the night. I do not want to know what time it is when I am supposed to be sleeping.

The old phone is a perfect solution until the day when it is at one bar of battery and I forget to charge it even though I know of its tendency to just up and run out of battery without warning at that point, and I wake up to discover that I can actually be fully ready and at an important work event within 50 minutes of getting up.

And I was only 30 minutes late! Not cool.

And then there is the other problem (usually a benefit) that you can set the phone to go off only Monday through Friday.

This is sheer brilliance until the day you set the alarm for 8:30 expecting to get up and meet a friend at a new church on Sunday morning and then wake up ten minutes after church started to send her a sheepish text message because you are still in bed.

Two alarm malfunctions in one week does not bode well for the future of my old phone-turned-alarm. Or perhaps, for my brain.

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