The Alarm Clock

It was 6:27 am on a Wednesday. For some bizarre, weird, unknown strangeness, I woke up a few minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I hate when this happens. Most people in this situation would, I assume, just get up and shut off their alarm, but not me. When this happens, I will continue to lie there, in silent protest. To whom I am protesting, I have no idea, but if I have designated approximately 510 minutes of sleep time for myself, then that’s exactly how much time I’m taking, dammit. I say this as if, when my alarm clock finally does goes off, I will immediately jump out of bed instead of what I actually do, which is hit snooze 87 times. But that’s not the point here. So I’m laying there and my mind starts to drift instead of doing what it should be doing and that’s watching my clock closely so I can be sure to hit that snooze the very second that the alarm goes off, because if I don’t, it attracts … the Morning People. Morning People are a small tribe of annoyingly awake and very loud creatures that live in the house with me. They — (expletive deleted)! My alarm is going off!

“Hey Dad!” the six-year-old runs in and yells.

“Hi,” I grumble.

“Time to get up!”

“I’m not ready yet.”

He crawls up on the bed and sits down on the pillow next to my head.

“(Expletive deleted),” I say in my head and let out a sigh, "Here we go."

“It’s 6:31,” he says.

“Yep.”

“When are you going to get up?” he asks.

“I don’t know. 7:30,” I say, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave me alone. He doesn’t.

“It’s 6:32 now.”

“Thanks.”

At this point I could tell him to leave, but I don’t. The reason for this is unclear to me. Perhaps I don’t want my kids to think of me as that type of grumpy Dad (even though I clearly am at 6:32 in the morning). I think maybe it’s more because I smell the potential for a humorous Facebook/blog post and I’m willing to subject myself to what is about to happen to find out. Either way, I continue to lie there and try to ignore him.

“It’s 6:33. Six. Three. Three. Six hours and thirty-three minutes. Thirty-three minutes after six o’clock.”

At this point, it’s starting to become annoying, but at the same time I kind of wish he knew Spanish so I could hear him also say, “Seis treinta y tres.” Or maybe Roman numerals: “It’s VI. III. IV.”

He continues: “Now it’s 6:34. A six, a three, a four … 6:34 … AM.” He pauses. I know exactly what he’s about to say. “What does AM stand for?” he asks, right on cue.

Before I can say, “Ask Mom,” (see what I did there?) he decides to take the whole thing to a new level when he notices my alarm clock also displays ... ugh … seconds.

“It’s 6:34 and 23 seconds, 24 seconds, 25 seconds, 26 seconds, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 —”

“Riley,” I say sternly, hoping that that’s ALL I need to say.

“Are you getting up yet, Dad?”

My stern voice clearly needs work.

“Still not ready. I think I heard mom call you,” I lie. He doesn’t fall for it. It’s not the first time I’ve used that.

“It’s … 57, 58, 59 … it’s 6:35 now, Dad!”

“Okay! Fine! I’m getting up!” I grumpily yell and sit up.

“Yay!” he says and immediately runs out of the room.

I sit there fuming for a second, but then realize … hey, I can lay back down again! So I do. Because I’ve still got time before — EXPLETIVE DELETED! — my alarm goes off again!

“Daddy!” the 11-year-old runs in.