An ‘Alarming’ Situation

2/26/08

Kerry’s alarm clock began beeping at 5:32 am this morning. Usually Kerry gets it right away, and I don’t even hear it. But this morning was different as we had had a particularly bad night: hot, humid and no NEPA. When the beeping didn’t stop I began to wonder if it was my alarm going off instead of Kerry’s. So I picked up my alarm and held it close to my ear. The sound didn’t seem to be coming from there. So I put it down and closed my eyes. The alarm continued to sound. I picked my alarm up again and turned it off, thinking I must have been mistaken. But the sound kept coming! I was wondering if something was wrong with me. I continued to look at my alarm as if to will the sound to stop. Finally I realized that it wasn’t my alarm at all, but Kerry’s. My immediate reaction was this, “I wish I had a long stick to poke her with”. I really wanted to wake her up, but I was convinced that the only way to do that was by the use of a poking mechanism, not words… The concept of simply telling her to wake up never entered my mind. “If I had a stick, things would be so easy right now”, I thought. Suddenly, the alarm stopped. After about 5 minutes, Kerry got out of bed and started her morning routine. I went back to sleep. Later as I was regaling Kerry with this tale did I realize just how silly the whole thing was.