While My Life Slowly Slips Past, I Sleep

I don't entrust many tasks to my alarm clocks, but the ones I do, I expect it to do properly. In fact, my alarm clocks are actually only used for one task, once a day, 5 days a week. This is a job they have been designed solely to do. This job is to wake me up at a precise time. The problem is, no alarm clock seems to be able to actually do that task. Over the past six months, I could probably count how many times I've woken up successfully by, just my alarm clocks and with no help from other devices or human forms, on both my hands.

This has been a problem that I have suffered with most my life. I have had many alarm clocks and difference devices over the years to try and wake me up in the mornings, so I'm not late for what the day ahead has in store for me. For many years I had a Simpsons Alarm clock, which had different sayings said by Bart Simpson, which it would repeat until I pressed a button disguised as a drain cover. That has been sewn onto my soul for the rest of my life. There is an episode of The Simpsons where Bart shoots a bird. That episode includes two of the phrases which my alarm clock yelled every morning. Whenever I watch that episode, my brain automatically thinks I've over slept. I cannot watch that episode for that very reason.

I matured and then got two new alarm clocks. Not because I'm greedy, but just because I'm that useless at early mornings. One was a Science Museum clock which done lots of cool things and has what can only be described as a classic alarm clock sound. It has a button which projects the time to the ceiling and it can tell you the room temperature. This was my back-up clock which I would set to go off ten minutes after the first one to make sure I awoke. However, it barely works now and with various bits breaking, it is now only good for measuring the temperature.

The second alarm clock is equally over-designed. The only way to describe its physical appearance is to say that it is a Cyclopes' eye with a black baton impaled through the top of it. The bottom 'Cyclopes' part is a speaker, while the top 'impaled baton' part is a digital display of the time. It is a radio alarm clock. Due to the fact that it is tuned to Heart Radio and the fact that Heart Radio play the same playlist every morning, it is guaranteed that either a Lady Gaga or Take That song will be played when the alarm is set to go off. It has a good feature that to make it snooze, you just push the alarm clock due to the fact it rolls about on the 'eye'/speaker.

The problem is, 5 years later, that doesn't wake me up anymore. I will happily just sleep through the mindless jabbering of the breakfast hosts - no matter how high I set the volume. I had to stop having it on loud because I would wake up with a pounding headache. This means there is no hope of me waking up. I have tried other ways around this problem. For example, I have a speaker pillow. A nifty product I brought a while ago from Hawkins Bazaar. I plug my iPod into it and set the alarm on my iPod. When set properly, it works a treat. When it isn't, I'll just carry on sleeping. You have to make sure the volume is up high, and you have to make sure to exit all the menus for the alarm to be set. Not a reliable way of waking up when controlled by a man with a bad memory and not enough common sense to set an alarm clock.

I have tried using my phone's alarm. This works. However, it is highly annoying and when I use this method, I undoubtedly wake up in a foul mood. Also, in a way reminiscent of The Simpsons alarm clock, when I hear the tone I have on my phone in everyday life, I get in an awful panic and bumble about like an idiot for a few seconds. I have a Samsung, and my alarm tone is the default Samsung tone. So, I can be walking down the street and someone's phone will go off, or I can be watching TV, and someone's phone will go off on Coronation Street and the bumbling fool within is released.  It is as if my alarm clocks hypnotise me.

Now, my alarm is set to 7am, but I don't think I have actually woken up at that time in many years. My phone alarm is set to 7:30am. I will always wake up at this point. However, if I don't stop it quickly, it grates against my mind and the longer it goes on for, the worse my mood. This is where the Snooze feature on my phone comes in handy. Every 3 minutes it will go off until finally it will annoy me so much, I just get out of bed. However, sometimes I can carry on this charade for half an hour, just every 3 minutes putting it onto snooze. Before you know it, its 8am and I have to leave for school in 20 minutes.

It seems the key to waking me up is to repeat an annoying sound over and over again until finally I crack and wake up in a fit of rage. The problem with that method is that I am left in that mood the rest of the day. I thought I could just get a normal, basic alarm clock which will annoy me every morning, thus waking me up, but I don't like the idea of being annoyed every morning now. Then I thought I could get an alarm clock which I could dock my iPod into, and I then create a playlist with loud songs which I like. What a great way to enter the day; but I'm not sure it is actually annoying enough to wake me up.

However, just to be annoying; if someone rings the house phone or texts me on my mobile, I will wake up and be alert instantly. I suppose that means if I worked in a call centre, there would be no problems with me missing phone calls whenever I had a kip.

So here, I face a conundrum. Do I get an alarm clock to really piss me off? Do I get an alarm clock which will ease me into the day with a smile, but possibly not work? Or, do I pay a very reliable person to phone or text me every morning at 7:30am?

P.S. I just want to say, if you are reading this blog as a result of me applying for a job at your humble company, I am reliable and never late, despite everything I just typed... Also, I can make a mean cup of tea!