# "Worst way to wake up" contest. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 9, 2008, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707 "2008-03-09T09:15:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mahna\_Mahna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/41 "2008-03-10T01:33:58Z")
3am. With a cat on my leg… and a warm wet sensation spreading out from under the cat. She did it twice to The Boy as well, back when we first started dating. She didn’t like the fact that someone else was monopolizing my time when I should be 100% focused on her care and feeding. She stopped when she figured out that the arrangement worked out in her favour, because now she has two humans to boss around instead of just one. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/42 "2008-03-10T03:20:20Z")
Back in my bachelor days, there was a time or two I went into shock upon seeing who I was waking up next to. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/43 "2008-03-10T03:32:56Z")
[QUOTE=Q.N. Jones] Two weeks ago, I awoke early in the morning to my parents pounding down my front door. They’d come over to tell me that my younger sister was dead. [/QUOTE] I’m so sorry for your loss… ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Cream\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9f8e36/32.png) [@Ice\_Cream\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Cream_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/44 "2008-03-10T04:42:16Z")
Back in undergrad, while I was sleeping with my door slightly ajar I had a dream that someone was shooting at me and I was desperately trying to find something to hide behind before I was killed. Meanwhile, in the waking world my housemate’s girlfriend was walking by and decided to jump on my bed and yell my name. I woke up yelling “Holy shit!” and it was probably one of the most frightening things of my life. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/45 "2008-03-10T04:43:17Z")
Worst would be around 1 to 1:30 a.m., waking up to hear your mother crying from the next room and calling for help. (Second worst would be either waking up with one of those horrible childhood earaches I seemed to get, which always needed a car ride to the hospital, or getting a call in the middle of the night–only to have it be one of those predictive dialer thing where nobody answers.) ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/46 "2008-03-10T04:45:14Z")
[QUOTE=Q.N. Jones] Two weeks ago, I awoke early in the morning to my parents pounding down my front door. They’d come over to tell me that my younger sister was dead. [/QUOTE] I missed this and I feel like an arse now: I’m so sorry. _hugs tight_ ☹ ---
**Author:** ![hawksgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ed655f/32.png) [@hawksgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawksgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/47 "2008-03-10T04:46:39Z")
Once my ex-bf woke up bawling and yelling. Not a good way to wake up for either of us. Scared the living shit out of me, especially since I had to wake him up to get him to stop, and he still didn’t stop right away. I guess he’d had a nightmare that both his parents had died. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/48 "2008-03-10T04:54:19Z")
Many years ago, I woke up in the recovery room after a lengthy surgery. The recovery room was on fire and people were running around yelling. The sprinkler system had deployed. It was not restful. For a few moments I thought maybe I was having post-anesthesia hallucinations, but as I got more lucid, things didn’t return to normal. They whisked me and a couple of other “recoverees” to another room while the fire was being put out, but the smoky smell persisted for several hours. The hospital sent a lawyer to talk to me afterward. I guess they thought I might sue for having had to smell smoke for a couple hours. As far as I know, nobody was injured, and the next time I had surgery (a few months later), the recovery room looked entirely normal, as if the fire had never happened. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/49 "2008-03-10T05:03:16Z")
[This way](http://www.sable-pro.net/WHERE_IS_YOUR_GOD_NOW.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![kaiwik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaiwik/32/3978_2.png) [@kaiwik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaiwik)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/50 "2008-03-10T05:07:54Z")
February 23, 1995, five minutes before my alarm was set to go off the phone rang. It was my mom, telling me that my two year old nephew had wandered out of his yard the day before, and when he was found by Search and Rescue he was dead. (He wandered into the woods and fallen into a large puddle/small pond, had a wound on his forehead where he had banged it on a rock when he fell, and drowned.) After talking with mom I hung up and headed for the bathroom when the phone rang again. It was a friend telling me that a close friend (and my husband’s best friend from infancy) had been shot by another friend in a drunken fight. It was not a good day. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/51 "2008-03-10T06:19:14Z")
It was 5 a.m. on a dark Saturday morning in October, 2005. My 92-year-old mother was living with me. I was fast asleep, but awoke immediately when I heard her falling in the bathroom. She had gone to the bathroom with the lights out, went to sit on the toilet, and missed. Even though I got to her in seconds, there was already a pool of blood under her head. I put a rolled-up towel under her head, told her not to move, and called 911. She had a broken collarbone, a cut on her head and a pretty beaten-up right shoulder and upper arm. Nothing life-threatening. But one thing led to another, which lead to another, which lead to another, and by Tuesday morning she had died. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/52 "2008-03-10T06:22:31Z")
My few episodes (mostly after falling asleep in the back seat of a car during a long drive, as a matter of fact) of [“sleep paralysis”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis) weren’t fun, especially when I wasn’t quite able to wake up fully, and drifted back to light sleep again…then back to semi-waking paralysis…then back to sleep… One time (the first?), I thought I was having a stroke. I tried to wave my arm to get someone’s attention, but I can’t remember if I was even able to twitch it. If I ever _do_ end up like that, permenantly, I want someone to blow my head off. ---
**Author:** ![Millit\_the\_Frail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@Millit\_the\_Frail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Millit_the_Frail)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/53 "2008-03-10T06:26:22Z")
One night last fall, I woke up screaming. I was standing at the foot of my bed, screaming, and I couldn’t really remember jumping out of bed and getting there. I would have had to go around, since there’s a footboard. My husband was frightened out of his gourd. I had had a dream that there were bugs crawling all over me. Also, it was one of the most stressful times I’ve ever been through, and I had been holding it all in for months. I found out I was accepted to the school I’d applied to the _very next day_, which certainly helped me sleep after that. ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/54 "2008-03-10T06:41:52Z")
The husband comes in and says: “They’re all dead. All of them.” ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/55 "2008-03-10T08:54:48Z")
2am. Beirut. Bombs. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/56 "2008-03-10T10:02:30Z")
[QUOTE=Gukumatz] That is, until all ten members of the marching band came fully into my room in their Civil War-inspired uniforms and started playing Europe’s most famous “Final Countdown” around my bed. (Ah yes, they assured me they’d saved the best song for me.) [/QUOTE] You didn’t have a shotgun, I take it. > [@](#): > > January 16, 1994…I live about 6-7 miles from the epicenter. > Rico the mod lived even closer and had some houses burn down in his neighborhood. The was probably the worst for me, also. I was close, too, in Van Nuys at the moment, but even in Hollywood my neighborhood had quite a few buildings wrecked. Second would be as a kid having arsonists try to burn down my bedroom in the middle of the night. The sound of the flames woke me, and I was able to run and put the fire out with a hose. Then I saw them drive by, thwarted. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/57 "2008-03-10T10:16:54Z")
Not me, but one of my friends from school awoke to find his motorcycle helmet, which he was wearing, banging off the straps on the side of a truck. My friend was riding his bike in the fast lane of the motorway at about 80 mph, and had fallen asleep, and veered gently into an adjacent truck, which had held him up for a few seconds as he slept. Fucking scary, and we stopped keeping him up at night after that. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/58 "2008-03-10T13:12:57Z")
[QUOTE=Patty O’Furniture] I don’t think regaining consciousness is quite the same thing as waking up, for the purposes of this contest. But it’s the OP’s contest so he can be the decider. [/QUOTE] Yeah, but the reason the car left the road was because I fell asleep. Therefore, I was waking up. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/59 "2008-03-10T13:26:38Z")
[QUOTE=NinjaChick] Probably the drunk and stoned guy that tried to open my door, thinking it was his room. When he couldn’t get in he started pounding on the door and yelling obscenities. l. [/QUOTE] Sorry about that **Ninja** but i’ve cleaned my act up since then. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707/60 "2008-03-10T13:39:03Z")
To a large crash, my wife screaming, and a Ford F250 in my living room. I’ll post a couple pictures tonight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-way-to-wake-up-contest/440707.md?page=4)