So my circa 1991 clock radio (faux woodgrain for life!!) decided that Thursday was the end. It woke me up from the wonderful 9-minute snooz to BEEP BEEP BREEP BREez fssst fsst fsst… Even some percussive maintenance couldn’t revive it this time. Ah hell, but 20 years for an alarm that I think I paid around ten bucks for (I miss you, Caldor) is a pretty good run.
I used the cell phone alarm to get up on Friday. It would work, but I don’t like keeping the phone by my bed. There’s a couple callers who don’t seem to understand that I work second shift, so if you’re calling me at 8AM, somebody had better be dead. (OK, there was that one time that somebody was, but that was a weird exception.)
Since the Walton family could always use some more income, I bring home this shiny new one. Timex, they’ve usually made decent stuff, haven’t they? A bigger display too, since my eyes are also 20 years older. No more squinting to see what time it is when I wake up early. Yay.
Now to see what I’ll be waking up to. meep meep meep. What the hell is this? Is it one of those that gets gradually louder? Hmm, yes, but only slightly. Does the volume knob do anything? Nope. meep meep meep. Sitting in the room with it going off wasn’t the least bit annoying. AM radio static is actually louder and more annoying than this. Really, I tried that. This is the electric equivalent of my grandmother whispering in my ear “psst, pretty please time to wake up.” Who the fuck is this going to wake up? Someone who sleeps that lightly probably doesn’t need an alarm clock. If I wanted a kinder, gentler alarm I’d look for something with cute puppies or something on the package.
I sleep with a box fan running plus have some mild hearing loss, so this meep meep meep isn’t going to cut it. Not like I need a drill instructor screaming in my ear WAKE UP NOW MOTHERFUCKER THERE’S COMMIES INVADING AND YOU’RE LYING THERE LIKE A SACK OF POTATOES (but that Sonic Bomb alarm clock from thinkgeek is tempting) just something that might wake a semi-normal person up. Say, whatever happened to the stores having display models plugged in so you could test this sort of thing out?
So I pit, ummmm, whatever engineers, consultants and focus groups decided that some people might actually want to wake up to a pathetic little meep meep meep. Not all of us want to be gently rocked awake, you know.
Oh, and it’s still really hot and humid and shit.