My alarm is set to 05:28 and I wake to (the first 90 seconds of) a tune composed by Janko Nilovic; “Black on a White Ground”.
If it’s not a work day, I just get up when I get up. Usually, it’s `cause I need to pee.
I just wake up. Generally anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes before the alarm is set to go off. No matter what time it’s set for.
About 1 time in 15 or 20 I sleep until the buzzer of the alarm goes off. I hate that, because I feel so groggy and wool-headed when woken by the alarm.
During the school year I always wake up 10 minutes before the alarm. During the summer I can sleep in. This means roughly 6:30am, because the cats don’t adjust their schedules for vacation.
My dog tells time so well, I should have named him Rolex. I read somewhere that dogs can *smell *what time it is - the gradual changes in the atmosphere that occur with the rising and setting of the sun.
Anyway, he’s what wakes me up pretty much every day. I should be mad at him, but I’m really grateful. Without him, I’d sleep until who knows when and probably lose my job.
Being a retired gentleman of leisure, it’s usually either my kidneys or sunlight, and sometimes when I’m damn good and ready.
During the school year I wake up at 6 am, and the rest of the year I wake up when I wake up. I can pretty much get up whatever time I want without an alarm.
For me it’s my 1980’s era digital alarm clock. It’s got the super loudest most annoying alarm tone (I need it to wake up properly, cellphones never work for me).
Seriously, that fucking old ass things is LOUD with it’s “DEET-DEET-DEET-DEET-DEET!!!” I set both alarms, hate the machine when it goes off at 7:30, hate it even more at 7:37 after one snooze session, then hate it EVEN MORE if I hit snooze again and sleep until 7:44. Then I snap out of bed, realizing that I have about 30 minutes to do the three S’s (shit, shower, shave) and get on the road to work to be there by 9:00. I blame my alarm for everything…my sour mood, being rushed, it’s easy to push snooze button, the extra time it so generously grants me that makes me late, etc.
Loudest and most annoying alarm EVER.
Big yellow cat staring at my face. He doesn’t usually make any noise, just sits about five inches from me and stares at me. Sometimes he purrs.
Today it was highway traffic. I work nights so usually I sleep from mid morning to early evening. Today I got to early afternoon. Heat and humidity broke overnight so the windows are all open. My bedroom is on the roadway side of the house. Windows and drapes closed do a good job of muffling outside noises.
My dog George, tap dancing for his breakfast.
Having said that yesterday, today I slept until my alarm woke me. Yuck. 
This morning, it was feeling cold. We’ve had very sticky weather in the UK since early June, which means we’ve been sleeping with nothing but a sheet on the bed, but the weather dipped a bit yesterday, and I woke up shivering.
Not enough to get up though. I just draped a dressing gown on top of me and tried to ignore it, until the bin men decided to show up at 6.20am.
Ublike everyone else in this thread, my dog, who sleeps on the bed, doesn’t wake me up, I wake him. He’s not a morning doggy.
I’m up about 5:30 a.m. seven days a week. Unless I have a reason to get up earlier, I don’t use an alarm. I can’t remember the last time I set it.
Our dog rarely wakes up before me. She used to, but she’s an old and sick lady; usually I’m the one waking her up to get her outside for a walk before I leave.
Alarm woke me up - as it does every work morning. But what REALLY caught my attention was that our 15-20 yr old drip coffee maker chose this a.m. to give up the ghost! :eek:
Man, I know we aren’t gonna be satisfied with what they are offering these days. :smack:
I thought appliances like that were supposed to last FOREVER!
I can get up whenever I goddamn please. Except this morning… cat’s tongue on my arm, accompanied by purring (the cat, not me).
No, no! Listen up!
I have a totally rad gravity drop coffee maker that is completely stainless steel; I mean, even the pot. You can drop kick it across the room and not hurt it.
Anyway, you set the time, grind density, and coffee strength you want. When your alarm goes off (or before or after as you prefer), you’ll hear it switch on, the coffee beans pour down into the grinder, and that wonderful grinding sound that heralds a totally fresh pot of coffee in the making!
The future is here. LOL
I’m off this summer, so lately it’s one or more of the Sun, my bladder, or a freight train (the tracks go right past my building).
During the school year, it’s a digital alarm clock, followed by me staggering over to the computer, followed by my either kicking my butt into gear, or staggering back into bed for another couple of hours.
4:00am this morning I was rudely awakened by the TV coming on suddenly and blaring some awful commercial. Turns out the cat was laying on the remote.
My alarm clock.
And then my alarm clock.
And then my pair of alarm clocks going off simultaneously.
And then my pair of alarm clocks going off simultaneously.
And then my pair of alarm clocks going off simultaneously.
And then my pair of alarm clocks going off simultaneously.
And then I noticed that I should probably start getting ready for work and didn’t go back to bed.
Another vote for “bladder”. Usually it’s about 3 am and I can get up and go and then fall back asleep fairly easily. This morning it was 5 am and I could not get back to sleep, so about 5:20 I got up to start the coffee and played Wordament on my phone until it was ready.