#799 X-Snooze

I’ve never really appreciated the concept of snooze, and its technological ally the snooze alarm. When it comes to waking up in the morning, it’s either do it or don’t—and don’t is not an option.
I mean really, if I went to the trouble of setting an alarm, chances are I had a reason. That reason is just as important when the alarm goes off as it was when I clearheadedly set it.
At some point in my maturity, maybe it was the actual point I arrived in maturity, that logic became unassailable to my conscious, my unconscious, my subconscious and my dream avatar.
Alarm goes off, get up. Groan if you like, be grumpy if you like, but get the heck up and start your day. No one’s requiring you to embrace the damn thing, but roll out.
One of my kids was an expert in waking-up denial. He had two alarm clocks, one near his bed and one across the room. He also had a remarkable ability to be totally dead to the world when they went off.
His clocks succeeded in waking the rest of us very effectively.
So it is I get amused by alarm clock technology. The new ones on the market illustrate the snooze extremes. One clock has and infrared motion sensor. Wave an arm in its direction and it goes into snooze mode. Great, you can be lazy even when you’re sleeping.
One escalates its attempts to wake you, starting with an annoying buzzer, then flashing a strobe light. If that doesn’t work a vibrating attachment will force you out of bed.
And this one I like best: It’s called Clocky. Clocky has big balloon tires and runs away from you. At alarm time, Clocky rolls off your nightstand and “beeps and tweets like R2D2” until you catch it. The chase across your bedroom wakes you.
Unless, like my son, you sleep through it.
This is the same kid who could always rouse himself at an ungodly hour on a weekend to play paintball.
It’s like alcoholics but with slumber.
You can’t quit sleeping until you want to.
America, ya gotta love it.