Excessively Alarmed

As the first glimmers of consciousness sparked in my brain, I became vaguely aware of an irritating noise: beebeebeebee…

As I woke up more thoroughly, it seemed to grow louder–but upon full consciousness, I realized that the volume had remained constant, and my brain had simply been gradually allowing the sound to filter in.

“Muh,” I said.

With a clumsy swing, I smacked at the snooze button, but the noise didn’t stop.

Must have missed.

I lifted my head in irritation, mentally calibrated my still sleepy muscles, targeted the snooze button and pressed firmly and carefully. The alarm did not stop.

I sat up, annoyed. I’d left all my windows open, and sunlight was assaulting my face. I smacked the snooze button several times in quick succession, and, out of desperation, pressed every button on the clock, sometimes two or three at a time and holding them down. The alarm was still going.

 A second blaring noise layered on top of the first. My phone was ringing. It was Kristi.  There are few people I will forgive for calling me at the buttcrack of dawn, but Kristi is one of them.

“Yuh?”  I said, holding the phone up to my face.

“Sorry if I woke you,” Kristi said. “I just needed to ask really quick…wait, what’s that noise? Is your house on fire or something?”

“My alarm clock won’t shut off,” I slurred groggily.

“Well, why don’t you just pull the plug?”

See, that was Kristi:  always logical, even at 6 AM.

“Yes,” I said. “Call you back.”

The sound still blaring in my ears, I tried, to no avail, to reach behind the bed for the outlet, but my arm got wedged inches out of reach.  Every joint in my body protesting,  I crawled under the bed, wriggled toward the plug, grappled for the cord and yanked.  The sound did not stop.

Freaking battery backup.

I live across the sheet from the most delicious diner in the world, and it gets a lot of foot traffic.  Passers by, alerted by the noise, were starting to stare through the windows as they walked past. I slammed the alarm clock upside down on the nightstand in rage and started prying open the battery case.  Why the hell did I leave all the windows open?

Some lady walking her dog saw me catch her eye and hastily tried to cover her nosiness by smiling and waving.  I waved back, but my smile was probably a little bit Jack Nicholson crazy eyes.

I got the battery case open, but the batteries were jammed in really tightly.  I broke a nail trying to get them out.  Then, over the continuing blare of the alarm,  I heard someone yelling hello from the living room.

I live by myself…

Genuinely freaked out, I scrambled into the living room, brandishing the alarm in front of me like some kind of sonic weapon.

It was some kind of maintenance guy.  He had apparently let himself in.

I was suddenly super cognizant of the fact that my pajamas were really old and full of holes.

“Did you know your front door was unlocked?”  The maintenance guy asked, seemingly oblivious to both my attire and the deafening noise.

“Why the HELL does that make it okay for you to just walk in?”  I raised the blaring alarm clock in a threatening manner.

“You scheduled a stove repair, right?”  He asked, unphased.

“Repair THIS!”  I chucked the alarm clock at him violently and with hilarious inaccuracy. It made a Doppler Effect noise as it sailed through the air.

A baby toddled in from the kitchen.

I do not, as far as I’m aware, own a baby.

I stared at it in utter incomprehension.  It stumbled over to the alarm clock, undeterred by the noise, and gnawed on the buttons experimentally.

“Aww,” the repair guy said. “Cute little guy. ”

The baby started mimicking the sound of the alarm clock.  “Beebeebeebeebee…”

“WHOSE BABY IS THIS?”  I bellowed.

Then I woke up.

My alarm had been ringing for a solid four minutes.  I hit the snooze button for real this time, and it mercifully worked on the first try.

This was not going to be a good day.