Just in case you've been waiting for it, 2006 marks the 50th anniversary of the invention of the alarm clock snooze button. If this is too early for you just smack it and celebrate it again in 2015.
This is a celebration of great importance to me because I live and die by my snooze button. My continued employment is a direct result of its magical properties. Were it not for its punctuated insistence kicking me slowly into reluctant wakefulness I'd never get up at all and a nursing staff would have to turn me regularly.
Every morning my alarm goes off at 7:30, beginning a daily cycle of alarm-snooze-alarm-snooze until an external force such as my wife, maddened neighbors, or the police intervene. You know those alarm clocks that wake you with the gentle sound of soft summer breezes whispering over a bubbling brook? Mine isn't one of those alarm clocks. Mine is the kind you could put on the bank of a rocky coast to warn off approaching ships. And yet it still takes a solid half hour for me to pass, kicking and snoring, through the Five Stages of Encroaching Consciousness.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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"Five Stages of Encroaching Consciousness" That is just priceless I laughed out loud several times when I read this column, you sound exactly like my brother does, he can't get up either. When we were younger I had to resort to things like flipping the mattress over and dumping on the floor, which would occasionally work but not if he kept his covers and could stay warm
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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My big problem is that, when my alarm goes off, I am too muddled to FIND the snooze button. My hand frantically wanders around until it finds the OFF button, and by then I have to get up anyway.
Posts: 202 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I really want to sneak up on you with a buzzer sometime now.
I like Steve Martin's idea of an alarm clock. It starts out gentle, just "Hey buddy . . . c'mon man, wake up. Wake up, buddy." It slowly works its way to being louder and more insistent. Finally it's screaming "YOU LAZY USELESS SLOB, GET OUT OF BED!" At this point, you hit the snooze button, and it starts over again at a gentle whisper.
Posts: 767 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Yeah, that's me. I have to hit the snooze 3 times. Plus, I have the clock set 20 minutes ahead. So when my alarm goes off at 6:10, it's actually 5:50. So I hit the snooze 3 times, until it's 6:17. Then I make myself get up. For me, calculating what time it REALLY is (and how much time the 9 minute snooze will give me) helps my brain wake up.
Posts: 1346 | Registered: Jun 1999
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"Einstein knew. Time is relative, he said, and he wasn't just talking about experiments with clocks and rocket ships. The minutes before I get up are the longest and most precious minutes in the day, and I part with them reluctantly, one by one.
"I'll bet Einstein was a late sleeper."
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