Alarm Clock

I went over six months without using an alarm clock. Actually, I hadn’t even unpacked it until a couple of weeks ago.

After unpacking it, I had to set it. The first decision was figuring out what sound to wake up to. Waking up to a buzzer is too much for me. I don’t know how people do it. There has to be some strong correlation between unhappy people and people who wake up to loud buzzers. The short time I spent waking up to a buzzer, I'd start the day being angry at everything, starting with the alarm clock.

I can’t wake up to a CD either. Jake did a good job out explaining why. I’ll summarize: if you’re a big Doobie Brothers fan, and you decide to wake up to them every morning. In two weeks, you’ll hate the Doobie Brothers.

I wake up to the radio. It’s a nice in-between. Howard Stern used to wake me up for years. The problem with Howard was that I’d lie in bed and listen to him for a half hour before getting up. (I understand why women don’t like Howard, but I never understood how men could listen to anyone other than Howard back when he was on FM. Would you go watch an Elvis impersonator if the King himself was playing across the street for the same price?) And classic rock stations are good for me because it pretty much guarantees a different fast song every morning (although Deep Purple seemed to wake me up quite a bit.)

Anyway, when I set up my alarm clock this time, I decided that I'd wake up to NPR. I found it on my radio, and went to bed. The next morning I realized that instead of 91.5 (which is NPR), I had accidentally set my alarm to 90.1, WMBI, Christian Contemporary.

It wasn’t bad. The DJ’s voice is very friendly and soothing, and the songs are always uplifting. I’ve kept it as my morning station. Cindy offered to search for NPR for me this morning, but I told her not to, I like my Christian Contemporary station.

Yesterday’s wake up was pretty good. The DJ’s were talking (sometimes it's a song), and their conversation went like this.

DJ 1 – You know, GPS technology is really booming today.

DJ 2 – Oh yeah?

DJ 1 – Yeah, you can get GPS for anything these days.

DJ 2 – Really?

DJ 1 – I love having it in my car, I never get lost anymore. And you can get directions on the fly.

DJ 2 – Yeah, I like that too. It’s great when you're lost.

DJ 1 – Yeah, and listen to this, I heard about this new GPS tracking system that you can attach to your dog’s collar. So if you’ve got a dog that runs away a lot, it’s a great thing to have.

DJ 2 – Oh yeah, definitely.

DJ 1 – Soon we’ll be able to put these chips everywhere, like in our wallets, or on our keys.

DJ 2 – Yeah, really an amazing technology.

DJ 1 – You know what’s a good GPS for people that are lost?

DJ 2 – What?

DJ 1 – The Bible.

I was on my feet and ready to start the day.