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October 17, 2005

488: Charlie don't sleep with a white noise machine.

Well, it's finally happened.

I've become the kind of jerk who sleeps on a Swedish foam pillow, uses an air filter and requires a white noise machine to soothe her into a semi-restful state.

Sure, I used to sleep with one of those eye-mask situations and ear plugs in college, but I'd like to see you try getting a mid-day Gothic Nap in a dorm full of screaming girls. But living in NYC and having a bedroom with windows that overlook an inexplicably busy street, I've come to appreciate the serenity a droning air conditioner can provide when you're trying to sleep and everyone else on your block is trying to honk their car horn. Last week's torrential rain and spirit-breaking cold negated any desire to use the air conditioner for its white noise benefits, and brought us to a fork in the road -- do we sleep with gritted teeth and suffer the street noise or do we give into our coddled, yuppie inclinations and get a machine to lull us to sleep?

So maybe I'm not quietly subverting the system from the inside like I thought I was -- maybe I'm working in advertising and maybe these pants came from Banana Republic. But, seriously, can I stand myself if I own a white noise machine? I may find myself dozing off to computer-generated jungle noises while my skull rests on a pillow of space age polymers but, as God as my witness, I will never order a Starbucks drink by its precious sizing convention!

On a related, slightly embarrassing technological note, we're in the market for a dual alarm clock. That is, an alarm clock that can be set to ring at more than one time in the morning. Of course, I've got all kinds of neurotic, largely unfounded concerns about this. What if it goes off any no one is right beside it to slap it quiet as soon as it rings? If you let your alarm go off for more than 2 seconds, I honestly hate you. What if, in my checking-the-alarm-clock ritual, I mess up one or both of the settings? I can't go to sleep until I've messed with the clock at least five times -- so much can go wrong with all that clock-handling! What if the clock hates me, nixes my wake-up time and skips right to Pete's? It could happen!!

I guess the biggest concern about any alarm clock is the noise it makes when it sounds. I'm not into radio-alarms, mostly because I hate the radio. I don't like listening to other people's music in normal situations, why would I want to be ripped out of my catatonic sleep-state by a song I probably hate? Could a day have a less auspicious start? Worse yet, a DJ might be talking -- no one should be allowed to talk for at least two hours after waking up.

Some alarms make bleeping noises that work on a frequency determined by scientists to make you as uncomfortable and nervous as possible. I have no proof of that, of course, but who hasn't been in a club and heard a song that hit some note that subconsciously reminded you of the noise your alarm clock makes? Maybe that's just me, but when it happens, you'll want to curl up and die -- yet you won't really know why, you'll just know that you suddenly feel uncomfortable, grumpy and weighed down by the sense of obligation and misery that your alarm clock greets you with every morning.

Pete suggested we get a clock that mysteriously knows what stage of your sleep cycle you're in, and times itself to sound when you're not in such a deep sleep that waking you up would be disorienting and awful. But how does it know that you're in a lighter sleep state? Does that creep anyone else out on a profound level?! You set it go off during a certain range of time to accommodate your morning schedule, which is odd because the purpose of an alarm clock is to have something to look at in the middle of the night and effectively calculate the exact number of minutes you have left to sleep if you shut your eyes immediately and passed out. I want to know that I have exactly 5 hours and 43 minutes to sleep, SO SLEEP GODDAMNIT! I don't want to know that I have, eh, like maybe 5 and a half hours, kinda sorta.

Does your alarm clock wake you up with a gradual increase in volume? Being that I can't stand to know an alarm clock has been going off for more than 2 seconds (which is how long it takes to rocket yourself out of bed and slam the clock with your clenched fist), I would hate to wake up and feel like my alarm had been on for longer than the allotted time. It seems irritating and inconsiderate to the neighbors, as well as creepy -- that alarm was awake while I was asleep and unaware of it.

Besides, it's not normal to wake up gradually, it's really not. As I told Pete earlier, the proper way to wake up is be shaken out of bed with a profound sense of fear. That's why alarm clocks are so scary -- if we were meant to wake up to something soothing, the evolution of the clock would be entirely different. Alarm clocks, since the dawn of mechanical crap to keep you from sleeping any longer, have been designed to be completely horrifying. You're supposed to jump up with your heart racing, otherwise you'd just lay there like a sleepy bum.

Who has time to lounge around in the morning? I'll tell you who -- hobos! Well, I'm no hobo. When I wake up, I wake up like a fierce jungle cat. I leap out of bed, slam the clock and if Pete dares to speak, I kick him across the room before I'm even aware of my actions. It's terrifying but it's effective -- for the rest of the morning, I'm a total wreck of nerves and fury. There's no need to drink coffee -- I don't like it and it makes your breath stink -- all you need is FEAR.

So, I've come to the conclusion that the ideal alarm clock will be one that sounds like gunfire. Pete and I will roll out of bed like commandos, wide-eyed and ready to blow your face off. That might not work for every couple, but clearly we're not a normal couple. Most girlfriends want their boyfriends to spend a night in watching Moonlighting, not Apocalypse Now (man, so sweet!).

Does the Sharper Image sell anything that puts you to bed with the soothing sounds of helicopters, but wakes you up with D-Day?

Posted by ashley at October 17, 2005 05:54 PM

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