Hark

We've been sleeping with the windows open over the weekend, lest we die by paint fumes. Our room is now a midnight blue, just what I wanted. And it stinks.

That's when the fighting begins, and the neighbors get an earful. It's the same argument, in syndication.

Me: Why, why, why won't you do what you are supposed to do? AARRGGHH.

Inanimate object: Null

Me: The buttons don't work right. I need to get up earlier tomorrow. And. It. Just. Won't. Let me. Here, you try.

Greg (sighing and disinterested): Yep, you're right. It doesn't work. You should find one that works.

He is smug, he with his one true alarm clock. His still works.

I begin to struggle with my clock, the one I paid $5 for - it was not a bargain.

I won my first alarm clock (great prize, eh?) selling something, or saving stamps. (Or maybe that was the Bradys.) I had it from the tender preteen years through college, newly married and with two babies. It never let me down. I never thought about it. I just packed it through countless moves and roommates. It was steady.

I hated seventh grade. I bet you did too. It's the great equalizer - so few people have fond memories of it. But I had my tonsils out in October that year and 2o days later, I had an emergency appendectomy. I missed six weeks of school; it didn't help. Better yet, my 12 year-old friends had discovered black beauties and were giving out pointers on, well, let's just say that Monica Lewinsky had nothing on these girls.

I was soon in the market for some new friends. And fast.

I used to cry every morning before school. I begged my mother to let me quit, but she was all you have to go and so I did.

That was when I discovered I needed a theme song, something to psyche myself up with before I headed to Satan's Land. (More on that another time.)

Cue

Lisa Wheeler's Wake-up Song, circa 1983 aka Theme Song

I don't know why, but it spoke to my angst-ridden, tween heart. I would wake up to it and play it over and over again on my trusty, free alarm clock radio. I completed my incompletes and blossomed into a fine young lady. (This is my version. I'm allowed to skip over the ugly, awkward stage when I tell it.)

By the time Zack was born, the thing was banged up and pathetic. The radio didn't work; I don't own cassettes anymore. One day she needed to be put down.

So, I bought the cheapest hunk of crap I could find. It is worth every penny. It dictates my schedule and raises my blood pressure.

(I bet I know what I'm getting for Mother's Day.)

Technorati tags:

Comments

Popular Posts