Interrupting Dreams with Screams

Every night before I go to sleep, I set 11 alarms in my iPhone– the first starting at 5:45am and the last at 8:15am. You would think that 11 alarms would be sufficient to wake anyone up, but not me. I am confident in my abilities to sleep through an earthquake-tornado-hurricane storm without any interruptions to my dream. I recognized that was serious issue when my brother’s guinea pig got annoyed that I wasn’t feeding him on time, so he opened his cage, walked down the hallway and stood in front of my door making loud “wheek-ing” noises for me to get up and give him his serving of Timothy Hay. I recognized that my sleeping pattern was a problem, so I identified an alarm clock that’s louder than a 1961 Cadillac Eldorado’s horn and more disturbing than a 6.8 magnitude Earthquake.

The “Clocky” alarm clock is the most terrifying thing that I’ve ever willingly purchased for myself. It is an alarm clock attached to tractor wheels and SUV tires. Those wheels are attached to a tiny motor that has more torque than a Subaru Impreza WRX and more horsepower than a Honda Civic with V-TEC POWERRRRR. On the front of the alarm there’s an illuminated LCD , which have the power to light up my entire room like a searchlight on Rikers Island. This alarm clock isn’t your typical alarm clock– it’s your worst nightmare….figuratively and literally.

When it’s time for Clocky to interrupt your beautiful sleep, he gives you one chance to wake up like a normal human being. He politely screams in an R2D2-like fashion for you to wake up. If you are like me and press the snooze button, he gets angry and two minutes later he unleashes his mechanical wrath on you and everything in his path. He drives off the nightstand onto the ground and he runs around the room, flashing his bright lights and releasing high pitch screams. If you are wise enough to wake up, you will see your entire room flashing brightly from the clock’s bright lights, and if you are like me this morning, you would think that you are part of a FBI raid and are two seconds away from being shot with bullets from a machine gun.

To make things worse, during this frightening Clocky spins his entire body around, making it hard for you to hold him and push his buttons. As if it isn’t hard enough to find the running alarm clock and stop the terror, now you have to make your sleepy body awake and aware enough to press the right buttons to bring this horror to an end. By the time that you’re able to put an end to this scary experience, you are awake enough to catch an antelope with no external assistance.

Each night I go to sleep in fear of my alarm clock, but at least I know now that I can go to sleep in peace and wake up early enough to catch the 6am reruns of Saved By the Bell: The College Years…while trembling in fear of the clocky.