At The Snooze Bar

Very early this morning I hit the wrong button on my clock-radio alarm, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I turned it off about thirty minutes before I needed to wake up. I meant to hit the snooze button, but due to the poor design of my GE model compact disc clock radio puts the on, and off buttons next to the snooze button on the top of the unit, all within easy reach of my meaty, sleepy hand. The easy to punch, springy buttons are no match for my sleepy selves, and it's easy for me to hit any of the three buttons.

On most mornings, I couldn't tell you which one of the three buttons I've pressed in the morning. I generally hit the snooze button about 3-6 times in the morning, and actually use two different alarms, the news that comes on some time around 6:45 and then the CD track Even Better Than The Real Thing from the U2 second greatest hits album that starts out like a police siren. that comes on at about 7 - the first time.

You can probably guess that it's turned up pretty loud. I don't wake up very easy. Sure, when I'm at Chris' and his little wimpy beeping alarm goes off it wakes me up just because it's different, but I've slapped that thing down so fast that I've caused him to be late for things. I'm a chronic user of the snooze bar. It's both a lifesaver, but also a way that i gently move from deep sleep to less-than-deep-sleep.

Like I said, today I was in that less-than state, and I managed to hold on enough to the fact that I knew that I hit the wrong button to actually take action, sleepily change the time that U2 would be summoned again, and set it back on track for two more starts of the yet-to-be-finished song before I woke up again. Finally i got up, went into the morning rituals, cleaning, listening to Larry (lfkbear), reading a little LJ and eating a little before running out the door.

This morning however, I was surprised as i was out on the landing and locking the door, with my lunch cooler full of Hot pockets in my hand, when a voice got my attention. "Hey, may i ask you a favor?" she said? I had never seen this person, but she quickly introduced herself as my neighbor.

Now in my near two years of living here I've never met one of my neighbors. They all like to run quickly into their apartments and lock the doors. The complex itself doesn't really make it where you get to know your neighbors as your apartment is made to face as few other apartments as possible. In fact, this neighbor is the only person that I share a joining wall with.

The question she had for me was: "Could you turn down your alarm in the morning?" My GE thunder-blaster sits right next to our adjoining wall, and to actually have the clock portion of the device face me, one of the stereo speakers kind of faces the wall, probably sending a wall of U2 right at her each morning. It's probably even worse on those mornings when I'm out of town and i have forgotten to turn the alarm off, and it plays a good fourth of U2's greatest hits ever.

Still, I was kind of curious as to who this was, because I had never seen her before. The only person I had ever seen in the apartment next to me was the athletic guy who's lived there - as soon as last week. Did he get a girlfriend? When?

I told her that I would try, but I was totally unsure as to what I would do then, and I'm still unsure now. I need to make sure I wake up in the morning, and that i don't fall back to sleep, too. I'll try to turn down the volume some, but I'll have to be careful, or I'll sleep on into mid-morning, just like I'd like to do.

I'm not so sure if it will I'll find myself at work tomorrow, or sleeping, finding it better than the real thing.