I’m not really a morning person. It’s not that I’m grouchy (I’m actually quite happy in the AM), it just takes me a while to wake up and get going. So much so that my husband has dubbed me a Turtle. The really funny thing is that our dog is the same way! He LOVES to go back to bed after my husband takes him out in the morning.
I don’t like having a clock on my bedside table because I cannot resist checking the time if (when!) I wake up in the middle of the night. I find that knowing what time it is messes with my mind. For instance, if I take a peek and it’s midnight, I’m thinking “UHG! It’s only midnight – why did I wake up so early?!". Or if it’s 5:30 I’m thinking “Rats, I only have an hour left!". Therefore, I’ve been using the Alarm feature on my cell phone. Since viewing the time on the cell phone would require me to press a few buttons to “wake” it up, I can easily resist checking the time in the middle of the night. I can also pick from a number of jaunty little tunes to roust me at the appropriate time in the morning. This worked brilliantly until yesterday when I overslept because my cell phone failed to emit any sound whatsoever at the appointed time. Apparently my smart phone isn’t so smart after all! Maybe the speaker went bad, I really don’t know, but now I can’t trust the blasted thing!
Last night I unearthed an old alarm clock that I inherited from my Dad. It’s this fancy schmancy contraption from Hammer Shlemmer that has a number of quirky features. You can pour these “Aroma Beads” into the top (I have several different scents including “Stress Relief”, “Energy” & “Calming Lavender”) and when the internal light comes on, it apparently warms these tiny wax beads releasing their scent. It also has 6 different “soothing” sounds that you can choose to either wake up with or go to sleep to. These include “Ocean Waves”(it’s the sound of distant waves gently coming to shore), “Zen Melody” (a twangy instrumental sound you would expect to find in a Japanese restaurant), “Gentle Rain” (the pitter patter of rain with an occasional soft distant rumble of thunder), “Morning Birds” (self explanatory), and 2 others I can’t remember right now. There are also a handful of different combinations you can use for the alarm. From their little pictographs, they looked like “Buzzer only”, “Light with Sound” , “Scent with Light”, etc. I didn’t really pay close attention to these and picked the one all the way on the left which looked like “The Works”. I did wake up a few times last night (and of course could absolutely not resist the dreaded “time check” – Uhg! It was 12:24!)
I awoke this morning to the gentle sound of “Morning Birds” and light (but alas no scent of “Calming Lavender” – oh well). It was really pleasant! I looked at the time, and much to my horror it was only 6:15! What gives? I know I set that thing at 6:30! So I did what I do every morning and hit the “Snooze” button. A few minutes later (10 minutes maybe), again with the birds and the light. I’m thinking “okay, I can deal with this”, and I hit the snooze again (I typically do this for about a half hour! Remember, I’m the Turtle!). The next thing I know, I hear this horrendously loud ear splitting screeching sound that caused me AND the dog to literally vault out of the bed. “OMG! WHAT’S THAT??!!” I’m thinking while I fumble with every button on that damn clock to get it to stop. I look over at the dog, and he’s glaring accusingly at the alarm clock (thinking the exact same things as I, no doubt!). In hindsight, it was quite comical and I wish you could have seen us (well maybe not me in my jammies with my hair looking like it just came out of the blender!), but the expression on my dog's face! You can't make this stuff up! Funny aside, It was nevertheless thoroughly traumatizing to both of us, and I can tell you that I NEVER want to hear that sound again!
I realize here that the alarm clock did its job (oh, I got out of bed – that’s for sure!), but did it have to be so obnoxious about it?! I mean, come on, I would have eventually got up! I don’t know how anyone could face their day with a smile after such a rude awakening! I’m convinced that some inanimate objects have minds of their own. This alarm clock sure takes its job seriously! After I hit the snooze button a few times, I can just picture that alarm clock saying to itself “I’ll show her! We tried this the easy way, now it’s time to bring out the big guns!” It’s like the one-cup coffee maker I have at the shop. I swear sometimes that thing hates me! I never know if I’m going to get a full cup or not. Believe me, you do not want to get between me and my coffee! The Turtle NEEDS her coffee.
Any-hoo, me thinks I’ll try one of those other alarm settings tomorrow morning, and hopefully there is a combo I can live with. If not, I’ll have to buy a new one – it was truly that awful!
