The Watchtower of Destruction: The Ferrett's Journal - A Post From Tajess

[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]

October 9th, 2003
10:03 am

[Link]

Previous Entry Add to Memories Share Next Entry
A Post From Tajess

I was such a deep sleeper that when I lived alone, I had to find various ways to trick myself. I used to put the alarm clock across the room from me - and not just sideways! Oh, no, it was far too easy to roll off the bed, slap the alarm, and roll back. I had to put the alarm clock five feet away from the foot of the bed, where I had to circumnavigate the piles of stuff I had placed there.

But like a sleep-addled ninja, I circumvented all the traps and still overslept.

I also played games with the clock, setting it ahead ten minutes in the hope of inspiring a burst of panic, which would in turn pump enough adrenaline into my system to shock me into lucidity. It worked, briefly, until I automatically compensated and looked at the clock, saying, "Oh, it's 8:10 - I have another ten minutes!"

In a strange arms race, I then set my clock ahead further to trick my sleeping mine the next day. And the next. Eventually, no matter how I rigged it, my reptilian brain automatically knew what time it was. The only casualty was my friends, who would look at my clock that said "6:47 a.m." and say, confusedly, "What time is it?"

"Oh. It's 9:24 p.m.," I'd say, doing the translation without thinking. "We can still make the movie."

The best clock I ever had was a voice alarm clock that spoke the numbers like "Robby the Robot"; when I cranked it up, it was louder than many stereos, and the alarm never stopped.

"BEEP! THE TIME IS - TEN - FORTY - SIX - AY - EM. TIME TO GET UP! BEEP! THE TIME IS - TEN - FORTY - SIX - AY - EM. TIME TO GET UP! BEEP! THE TIME IS - "

Eventually, after I hit the snooze alarm fifteen or sixteen times, my family would come in and shout, "Would you wake the fuck up? Jesus Christ!" And that usually did it.

Which taught me the best alarm clock of them all: A near-insomniac wife who will handle precisely three snooze bar slaps before she shoves me off the bed and says, "Will you stop that?"

(60 shouts of denial | Tell me I'm full of it)

Comments
 
Page 1 of 2
<<[1] [2] >>
[User Picture]
From:rollick
Date:October 9th, 2003 07:07 am (UTC)
(Link)
Good lord. I think I would have killed you long ago, personally. A hatchet between the shoulder blades is also a fairly good waker-upper… but only the once.
[User Picture]
From:theferrett
Date:October 10th, 2003 08:18 pm (UTC)
(Link)
Fortunately, up until now I've had slothful girlfriends. But yeah, Gini's none too pleased.
[User Picture]
From:albumlady
Date:October 9th, 2003 07:27 am (UTC)
(Link)
Ahhhh yes, I think most men are capable of that. My husband now has exactly two chances to get up, on the third ring, I straight leg him off the bed! Nothing quite annoyes us light sleepers like a bedmate who dozes though the noise which has just made us want to cling like a cat to the ceiling!! :)
From:wispfox
Date:October 9th, 2003 08:14 am (UTC)
(Link)
Nothing quite annoyes us light sleepers like a bedmate who dozes though the noise which has just made us want to cling like a cat to the ceiling!! :)

Yes! That! All of that!

*clings*
[User Picture]
From:tajessa
Date:October 9th, 2003 07:29 am (UTC)
(Link)
Ah. I am so glad to meet one who understands. :)
When the rest of the world realises that the day should only start in the afternoon, I will be a happy woman. Mornings are evil.
[User Picture]
From:frawg_angel
Date:October 9th, 2003 07:30 am (UTC)
(Link)
My new alarm has two different alarm times, so I can set one to wake me slowly with music, and the next to beep annoyingly when it gets to be "last chance to get your ass out of bed without being late AND stinky to work!"

I just happen to set my alarm an hour before I have to get up. And then snooze it for the hour, and then the last minute beep will go off, I snooze that about once or twice, and then I get up.

My brother, who stays with me when he's in town likens this to torture. Since the blaring music will wake him up, for an hour, with the calm after I snooze... to the blaring, and finally the beeping.
From:ex_fyrefairy885
Date:October 9th, 2003 07:34 am (UTC)
(Link)
My brain just says "Oh look...it's 6:15! Let's get up!" If I fight it, it just reminds me of all the things I haven't done yet that were due a week ago...and then kicks me out of the bed. Unfortunately, conditions have to be perfect for me to sleep with daylight...unless I'm in a moving vehicle. That always puts me to sleep.
[User Picture]
From:theferrett
Date:October 10th, 2003 08:20 pm (UTC)
(Link)
We are exact opposites. I can't sleep in a moving vehicle at all.
Natural Alarm Clock - (Anonymous) - Expand
[User Picture]
From:wolflady26
Date:October 9th, 2003 07:37 am (UTC)
(Link)
This reminds me of a really funny post from someone I used to read. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the post. It went something like: She would set 4 or 5 alarms at varying distances away from her bed to make her get up and set them all off. The last one, she hid under her dresser, to make it especially hard to get to it, and thereby assuring she could only do it awake.

The problem was, after turning off the other four alarms, she lay down on the floor to reach the last one under the dresser... and fell asleep, her head resting on a dirty t-shirt.

I wish I had these kinds of problems. I personally wake up at the first little sign it might be waking up time, and can never get back to sleep.
[User Picture]
From:theferrett
Date:October 10th, 2003 08:20 pm (UTC)
(Link)
The problem was, after turning off the other four alarms, she lay down on the floor to reach the last one under the dresser... and fell asleep, her head resting on a dirty t-shirt.

This is SUCH a "Zits" cartoon.
[User Picture]
From:wurmwyd
Date:October 9th, 2003 08:02 am (UTC)
(Link)
Hi There!

I was in a Japanese shopping center once, and they had a bunch of novelty alarms clocks. You've probably seen these before, the chicken with guitar, the wolf with saxophone, etc. But they also had one I've never seen before or since. It was shaped like a cartoon samurai, with a look of grim determination on his face. When you tested the alarm, you heard the sound of distant trumpets, and the galloping of horses, as if there were a massive battle taking place right outside your window. Then the Samurai started screaming orders at you in brusque Japanese. He sounded like those screaming business management trainees in Gung Ho. (with Michael Keaton) It would've woken a sleeping grizzly.

I HAD to have that alarm clock. I NEEDED it. But of course, by the next time I was able to get to that shopping plaza, it was gone. :(
From:aqui
Date:October 9th, 2003 11:01 am (UTC)
(Link)
...When I first reached the part about the samurai clock, I screamed "Suh-WEET!!!" at a higher pitch than I'd ever thought possible for me. DAYUM. A samurai alarm clock barking Japanese! That would be my most guarded treasure.

*sniffle* Pity you couldn't buy that one. These are kinda cool, though.

And sorry, Ferrett, for commenting so much in this particular post. I'm practicing my demon insomnia, pulling an all-nighter, trying to keep myself awake. >_> This post seems most relavent at the moment, heh...
[User Picture]
From:ziggy_prime
Date:October 9th, 2003 08:03 am (UTC)
(Link)
While I never had trouble waking up (I'm one of those annoying people who has a built in alarm), my ex-wife had me set her alarm clock randomly, between five and twenty minutes ahead, and I would change it every day. Since she didn't know how much I had set it ahead, and she was a stickler for knowing what time it was exactly, it would annoy her enough to get up and go check the clock in the office.
By that point, she was awake enough not to go back to bed.
[User Picture]
From:epa_flip
Date:October 9th, 2003 08:24 am (UTC)
(Link)
So, I'm not the only one that manages to do incredibly compelex things that mirror wakefulness just to stay asleep? I'm usually only that bad when I'm working on 4 hours or fewer though.
[User Picture]
From:theferrett
Date:October 10th, 2003 08:22 pm (UTC)
(Link)
I get worse the longer I sleep. If I'm just going to bed, I'm bad, but when I get ensconced I'm willing to fight for it. Sometimes drastically.
[User Picture]
From:stealingbabies
Date:October 9th, 2003 08:27 am (UTC)
(Link)
Ugh, yes. I'm on the side of the poor wife. -.- I'm definitely a lighter sleeper than my boyfriend, who goes to the measure of putting his alarm clock in the kitchen (only a room away--but still), blasting at full volume, to keep himself from being tempted by the snooze button. Sometimes he'll actually smack the snooze button, anyway, and crawl back into bed, fall asleep... While I'm sitting there just barely dozing off before the alarm comes blaring back on.

(Although, now, he often will get distracted by his computer in the living room, so this doesn't happen quite as often.)
[User Picture]
From:lorena_bee
Date:October 9th, 2003 08:29 am (UTC)
(Link)
another sleep walking ninja here.

Keep trying different clocks ... I finally found a 2 foot diameter alarm clock (with a pic of Garfield on it) that woke me up that I couldn't turn off in my sleep. After it broke, I set up a series of alarm clocks, including one that turns on a music CD with a CD of songs that get me moving in the morning.
From:aqui
Date:October 9th, 2003 10:51 am (UTC)
(Link)
...Sleepwalking NINJA! That is what I am! A NINJA!

Thanks for the term. Perfect description of anti-morning antics. =D
Wake up music - (Anonymous) - Expand
[User Picture]
From:alioth
Date:October 9th, 2003 08:35 am (UTC)
(Link)
this was a problem for me back in the day, when i had to get up before the sun to go to school. i would turn off my alarm and lay in bed 'waking up', only to doze off again until my father set the dog on me. so i had a dog alarm clock.

now, i either barely drag my arse out of bed at all, or i'm up and wakeful before the alarm goes off. i wake in a panic, thinking i've somehow slept through it, only to find that it's six-thirty ayem (alarm goes off at nine).

if i had my own way, though, there'd be no morning.
[User Picture]
From:theferrett
Date:October 10th, 2003 08:23 pm (UTC)
(Link)
If I had my own way, jobs would allow you to work on a basis of circadian rhythms. Me, I could work a 12:00 to 9:00 shift every day.
[User Picture]
From:zeostaryu
Date:October 9th, 2003 08:40 am (UTC)
(Link)
Ah yes... I once was like this and still am to a point. At one point, I had four different "alarm clocks."

One was my regular electronic one. Another was the old fashioned wind-up with an alarm bell that could wake the local dead. The third was my computer and the fourth was my TV set to channel 69 which had nothing but snow. By the time I turned everything off, I couldn't go back to sleep. But eventually, I was immune to them all.

Now, I end up waking up at 10 am at the LATEST on any given day. On weekdays, I'm automatically awake 2 minutes before my first alarm goes off. Even if it's a day off. Do you know how much that sucks?
[User Picture]
From:theferrett
Date:October 10th, 2003 08:25 pm (UTC)
(Link)
I myself had the TV tuned to infomercials. They're that annoying. To this day, I can still remember grudgingly waking just so I could turn off "George Foreman's Knock Out T'Fat Grill Machine."

I own one now. The hell of it is, it's actually pretty handy.

I cannot imagine ever waking up automatically. I do not have that switch.
From:(Anonymous)
Date:October 9th, 2003 08:52 am (UTC)

Hahaha!

(Link)
Which taught me the best alarm clock of them all: A near-insomniac wife who will handle precisely three snooze bar slaps before she shoves me off the bed and says, "Will you stop that?"

Heheheh. I'm the kinda guy who wakes up at an alarm, never fails. Kara, on the other hand, has slept through tornado warnings. So, I'm her alarm clock. I tend to give her about 5 minutes of "ok babe, wake up." before I start jumping on the bed and/or hitting her with pillows.

-C
I never said we were a mature relationship.
[User Picture]
From:fionnghuala
Date:October 9th, 2003 09:01 am (UTC)
(Link)
I've done all the stuff with booby trapped alarm clocks. I've found one of the best solutions to be talk radio - I slowly, slowly get interested in the programs, until eventually something comes on that makes me angry, and I'm awake!

At the moment I have a job where I can get in any time I like. Which is the kiss of death for any attempt to get out of bed. I'm powerless to do it without fear hanging over me...
[User Picture]
From:baronbrian
Date:October 9th, 2003 09:18 am (UTC)
(Link)
Oh Lord, you and my wife must be related. I wake up at some of the quietest alarms. My wife, however, has the loudest alarm we can find and she sleeps through it. Not even snooze bar, she freaking sleeps through it. I'm shaking her so I don't have to crawl over her to get to the alarm and she just sits there.

My wish is to get one of those CD player alarm clocks and find some really loud experimental music (something like crashing metal) and turn it up as high as it would go. Then not tell her about it. Surround sound with those really loud Bose speakers would be a nice touch. Ah, to dream a dream.
From:aqui
Date:October 9th, 2003 10:46 am (UTC)
(Link)
I have one of those CD player alarm clocks, and I must be a light sleeper too, despite my longtime belief otherwise. I always have such good intentions when I insert a CD the night before and set the alarm to go off at nine AM... But I wake as soon as I hear the CD beginning to turn...leap across my bedroom-floor boobytraps...shut it off...leap back to the bed and WHAM!...I'm asleep again before I have time to register what's happened. GAH!
[User Picture]
From:darthfox
Date:October 9th, 2003 09:45 am (UTC)
(Link)
evidently, i should marry your wife.

or something.

i can sleep through anything, and have done so. my advisor shakes his head in dismay and tells me i'm too old to be missing morning classes due to failing to hear the alarm, and no doubt he's right -- but if i don't hear it, how am i supposed to respond to it?

what i've actually discovered is:

my default sleep setting is about nine hours -- that is, if i'm not sick, strung out, etc., i'll wake up nine hours after going to sleep (which is a drag at my parents' place when i have the luxury of going to bed before midnight and thinking i'll get a nice long sleep, and then wake up at like eight).

my maintenance sleep setting is about six hours, but then i need to be allowed to wake gradually (i'm another repeat-snooze-hitter; i go for about an hour and a half, but if there were a sentient person shoving me out of bed i imagine i'd wake up sooner).

my survival sleep setting is about three hours, but then there's a substantial risk that i won't hear the alarm (and my alarm gives up after an amount of time i've never been able to determine -- unlike my neighbor's across the hall, which evidently buzzes until she comes home and shuts it off). any less than that and i have to keep all the lights on and call it a nap, and i can't do that two nights in a row and expect to be able to function. or, like, drive.
[User Picture]
From:theferrett
Date:October 10th, 2003 08:28 pm (UTC)
(Link)
evidently, i should marry your wife.

Well, I will rent her out as an alarm clock.
[User Picture]
From:moominmuppet
Date:October 9th, 2003 09:46 am (UTC)
(Link)
I used to be exactly like this. I really don't know what changed, because now I can wake up to any sound I've instructed myself to, and usually my internal alarm gets to me first, anyway. I frequently like to snooze, but I have to make a conscious decision to do so; I almost never unintentionally oversleep anymore. It's a weird change.
[User Picture]
From:zillah3
Date:October 9th, 2003 07:42 pm (UTC)
(Link)
Me, too- I have slept through tropical storms hitting my city (like the guy above whose girlfriend slept through a tornado warning), but now I can't sleep past 8. Why? The Child. I stopped sleeping through the night while I was pregnant, and it hasn't gotten back to normal. 'course, the monitor might have something to do with that... ;p
[User Picture]
From:brujah
Date:October 9th, 2003 09:47 am (UTC)
(Link)
Mornings, in general, are vastly overrated. They also become especially unpleasant when the alarm clock beside your bed is a 'progressive sound' alarm. The longer you allow the air raid siren to go off, the louder it gets. So... eventually I can hear the shit through the pillow I have shoved over my head in an effort to make the evil sound go away.

".... it can't possibly be time to get up yet, I've only been asleep for an hour ...."

From:rainjen
Date:October 9th, 2003 10:02 am (UTC)
(Link)
To quote my fictional lover, "The old saw about the early bird only proves the worm should have stayed in bed."

I obviously need to get married so someone will shove me out of bed. It's my only hope.
From:aqui
Date:October 9th, 2003 10:39 am (UTC)
(Link)
Hear, hear! I rely on my mate to wake me up every morning. Without his physical presence to beat my Sleep Demon into submission, I am perpetually (and painfully) nocturnal. *snarl* Damn it...
[User Picture]
From:soulseer
Date:October 9th, 2003 10:52 am (UTC)
(Link)
LoL, I've learned to set my clock for a random number of minutes fast. It's worked really well. Since I usually hit the snooze bar a couple of times anyway I never have enough time to sit and stare at it to figure out how much time I've really got. Plus, I can't see another clock from my room and I never bring my cellphone in there (it's set along with the clock of my 8am class) so I just have to assume the clock is right and never think about it until I start to run out of the house. ~*~
[User Picture]
From:callie_chan
Date:October 9th, 2003 11:48 am (UTC)
(Link)
Geek cure: rent a cool video game & set your alarm an hour ahead of whatever time you'd usually get up to start getting ready. You'll roll right out of bed just so you can run off & play the video game a bit before you leave.

That's what I do, anyway. XP

-Callisto
[User Picture]
From:soulseer
Date:October 9th, 2003 12:35 pm (UTC)
(Link)
hee hee I've done that before. Works pretty good =D
[User Picture]
From:weepingjester
Date:October 9th, 2003 02:35 pm (UTC)
(Link)
Your family calls you Jesus Christ? And I thought I was the only one with that problem.
[User Picture]
From:theferrett
Date:October 10th, 2003 08:29 pm (UTC)
(Link)
Well, I WAS born in a barn.
[User Picture]
From:flamsterette_x
Date:October 9th, 2003 03:03 pm (UTC)
(Link)
I guess my friend Jocelyn's Hello Kitty alarm clock wouldn't have done it for you then. She sets the volume on high, and it says: "Good Morning! Good Morning!" repeatedly until she gets up. (no, she doesn't do any tricks with the clock either.. though our friend Rich used to put alarm clocks all around his room, which kinda worked until his family got tired of all the nouse!)
(Deleted comment)
[User Picture]
From:theferrett
Date:October 10th, 2003 08:30 pm (UTC)
(Link)
Ooo. Now I have Alarm Clock Envy.

I've done the sock drawer trick. It's not my most shining moment.
The Ferrett's Domain Powered by LiveJournal.com