Bypassing my alarm's snooze button one morning, my hand obeyed a groggy, inner-voice and lunged for the power cord. After a good yank, the timepiece took a meteoric trip out the second floor window and hit the azaleas before you could say Timex.
"We need a change," said my wife in her usual morning stupor.
"Why?" I responded. "Last night you said you liked the whipped cream."
"No, not that. We need a new alarm clock."
At precisely 5:30 A.M. the next morning, I received a wake-up call from our new Marquis de Sade chronometer. According to the directions, all I had to do to deactivate the alarm was throw the clock against the wall. Obligingly, I delivered an overhand toss that sent our digital-faced bean bag flying across the room, shattering the Siegfried and Roy commemorative plate my aunt had bought for us in Las Vegas. It was going to be a good day.
Although the azaleas perked up, our bedroom was soon losing more and more cherished artifacts. One morning, I decimated a coffee mug that had proudly -- and ironically -- displayed the words: "I survived the Newhall earthquake." A few days later I missed the wall again and pitched the alarm at our dog Conan, hitting him in his favorite licking spot. Understanding his pain, I knew it was again time for a change.
Our next acquisition was a hand-sized clock sensitive to sound waves. Clap, yell or break wind in the direction of the sensor and the alarm would shift into snooze mode. The following morning, just as I was about to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature from the King of Sweden, the alarm went off. I hollered in the direction of the device, "I want to go back to Stockholm NOW!" Three minutes later I was giving my acceptance speech.
Things went well until the sensor began to hear as well as Beethoven in his final years. Mornings were now laced with words that I hadn't used since my last prostate exam, but still the alarm persisted. When Teresa and I resorted to clapping like Spanish flamenco dancers, we realized a decision had to be made. That weekend we signed up for Latin dance lessons and returned the clock.
No more daily trips to Madrid, I thought, as I doled out money for my next timepiece. This time, all I had to do was wave my hand like a Pasadena Rose Queen near the clock's motion detector and the buzzing stopped. That, of course, was on the mornings it functioned. Most of the time, the alarm persisted while I flailed my arms like expiring pythons.
One hundred fifty bucks later, we found a digital clock that emitted -- as the directions said -- "tranquil tones of nature." We had a few sounds to choose from. Teresa wanted the "Brazilian Rainforest," with sloths mating in the background. Suggesting that we save that one for the weekend, I chose number seven -- "Niagara Falls." Well, not only did we both sleep through the alarm, but I wet the bed. "Insomnia would be better than this," said my mate.
Thanks to unswerving persistence, we located the Sun Clock. At 5:00 A.M., the bowling ball-sized globe began to emit a soft glow. By 5:30 the orb's light had gradually grown to an intensity resembling the morning sun just breaking clear of the horizon. Now I know how Superman's parents must have felt when the planet Krypton exploded. My retinas were still the size of pinholes when I returned our Los Alamos timepiece that morning.
Apparently, you don't have to be characters in a Russian novel to have an unbreakable streak of bad luck. Instead of going the route of Anna Karenina, however, we decided to try one more contraption: our dog's biological clock. It worked.
Now at dawn's early light, Conan lumbers over to our bed and fondly stares at us for a moment. He then brings me to consciousness by licking my face which, unfortunately, is his second favorite licking spot.
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Copyright (c) 1998 by Joe Tortomasi. All rights reserved.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Certainly not to get to the other side, according to the Marx Brothers Karl and Groucho and other worthy sages in these shaggy chicken stories. If you're reading this, it's entirely possible that technology has taken over your life. How high is your NQ (nerd quotient)? If you think that humor is no laughing matter, you won't get an argument from Gandhi or Lord Nelson.
