wake me up before i go-go crazy.

song of the day: "hells bells"--acdc

you know what? i really dislike my alarm clock. really, really dislike it. i try not to use the word "hate" too often so i will just say that i loathe my alarm clock. now, i realize that this is not an uncommon complaint. there are probably very few people who actually like their alarm clock, with the exception of those obnoxious "morning people" who don't even need to set an alarm. they probably just spring out of bed at the appropriate time everyday and burst into song or something. i am not like this. at all. i need significant prodding to remove myself from my warm, comfortable, beautiful bed, especially if it is before 7am. therefore, an alarm clock is a must. but, as i mentioned before, i don't get along with mine. we are totally fighting right now. it's not only the fact that it wakes me up in the morning; it's also in the way that it choses to do so.

i can not, will not, nor do i think anyone should ever have to wake up to "talk radio." see, i despise "talk radio" (even more than i loathe my alarm clock). and other than just being downright annoying, talk radio does not lend itself to being effective "alarm clock material." instead of waking me up, it generally ends up becoming part of my dream. you know what i mean, right? you're walking down the little street in your little dream world when all of a sudden, some hot, random dude appears and begins informing you that brad pitt and angelina jolie really aren't getting along the way they used to and how he saw it coming from the very beginning. but because it's a dream, it's perfectly normal that hot-random-dude is talking to me about meaningless garbage. so i go with it and listen intently. (this does happen to other people, yes? please say yes...) so, when the meaningless garbage on the radio becomes part of my dream, all bets of me actually waking up in time are officially off. this is why i prefer to wake up to music. unfortunately, most stations feel the need to have one of those ridiculous morning shows during prime alarm clock hours. i'm sorry but there are few worse things than being woken up to one of those spoof songs about britney spears or an insane conversation about how the republicans aren't doing such a bad job after all. what a delightful way to start the day! well, i have been searching for a station that actually plays music in the wee hours of the morning but i have been defeated. there used to be one but it got replaced by an easy listening station and while waking up to mindless chatter is bad, i think waking up to mariah carey's "hero" is slightly worse. so now that there is no music and talk radio is undoubtedly out of the question, that leaves only one wake-up option: the beep.

sweet mother in heaven, the beep on my alarm clock has got to be on the list of "most intolerable noises known to man." it starts out at an incredibly loud level and then proceeds to become even louder and louder with every second until i can muster up the strength to throw my hand down on the snooze button. i should also inform you that i am a snooze button queen. yeah, you hate me, i know. but i don't think it's a choice. i'm pretty sure i do it in my sleep for the first half hour because i rarely remember hitting it as many times as i actually do. i must admit that it's getting slightly out of hand because i need to set my alarm an hour before i should get out of bed. i end up torturing myself (and anyone else within earshot) with this devil noise every nine minutes until i gain enough consciousness to turn the stupid thing off.

well, this morning, i hit a new low: the beep became part of my dream. what is wrong with me? i must really like to sleep. so what is my alternative now? i used to have a timer on one of my lights right by my bed that i set to turn on at 5am when i had to get up at 5:30. i figured that surely the transition from a completely dark room to a 60-watt light bulb in my face would kick my ass straight out of bed. know how i got around that? rolled over and buried my face in my pillow. yup, got pretty good at doing that in my sleep, too. perhaps i could hire someone to come in and jump on my bed every morning? i would probably just start to dream that i was on a boat on the high seas. i wouldn't put it past me. or i could try to find a clock like the kind that they have in cartoons where the big hammer comes out and hits me on the head. now that just might work...

so, i guess it's the beep for me unless there happen to be any new developments in the alarm clock market in the near future. it has been a while since someone decided to update the alarm clock. i think the biggest step they've taken in the past 30 years was switching to digital numbers from those little flaps that used to fall over when the time changed. yeah...those clocks were cool.