Snooze button

Is it possible to actually like the sound of your alarm clock? As in when your daily alarm shrills and frightens you half to death you greet the noise with pleasure? Or is this scenario more fitting, that when you are enjoying the last precious morsels of sleep your regimental alarm that you have programmed to wake you up does so with a sound that your ears loath so much. Oh man, that noise! It blares horribly, continually, until you do something about it. Like hit the snooze button. Ah... The trusty snooze function that you kid yourself into believing affords you some respite. Really?! The reality, my friends is that this is self torture, because before you know it your evil alarm clock will sound again. With a tone that you really, really hate. 

But, wait a minute - you're the one that programmed it to sound like that, didn't you? For arguments sake let's say it's on your smart phone. OK, most of us own one, and due to their multifunctional uses we also deploy them as alarm clocks. So why can't we programme them to sound more pleasant on our ears every morning. Well one day I had such an epiphany of doing just that. I decided that I was no longer going to be awoken by a sound that grated on my ears. I would choose a lovely little song from my phones catalogue of music. Ah - ah! When my alarm would go off in the morning I wouldn't grumble to myself, rather I would smile because I would be hearing nice music - so much so I wouldn't even feel the need to whack the snooze button. What a fool proof and clever plan I had thought of all on my own. So without further a do I got to work, sifting through my music library until I settled on Fleet Foxes. A nice folky guitar band who's music is just so delicious on the ears. That's it, I'll select one of these cheerful songs to be my new alarm tone. 

That night I had a spring in my step as I got ready for bed, bathroom duties done, night apparel on and into my slumber I got. Socks kicked off as my feet got warm enough. After a while I fell asleep. I can't recall if I had any dreams but if you're interested I once did have a dream that I was Batman, you know. And yeah, it was very vivid. OK, as the morning came around I jostled around sleepily, then my alarm went. My little ears heard  a familiar sound, a song playing from my phone that sounded quite unusual at that time of the morning. It was my new alarm tone. But due to my sleepy state of mind my drowsy brain didn't fully compute what it was hearing. So I just went back to sleep. After a while of momentary sleep my brain picked up on the music again. I slowly began to realise it was my new alarm tone. In one rapid movement I hit the snooze button. I yearned for more sleep. After a swift ten minutes of snooze time the song began to play again. Again, I hit the snooze button. Stop pestering me, will you! Then it dawned on me: this supposedly fool proof plan that I had come up with was not as smart as I had envisaged. No. Regardless of what type of alarm tone you use, from my experience you will quickly grow to despise it because it's now taken on a new role in life. My love for Fleet Foxes was now in peril as I was now associating them with disturbing me from enjoying my time in bed. This was worse than a pig accidentally wandering into a mosque.

 

Anyway, stubbornly I perserved with them for a few days and then came to the stark realisation that Fleet Foxes could no longer be my daily alarm tone. I just couldn't do that to them. So, after some deep contemplation I went back to using one of the horribly annoying tones programmed into my phone, and let me tell you - the hatred I feel for the one I use every morning is on a scale that I hope I never feel towards a human being. In retrospect with regards to my not so clever plan - I don't believe it's possible to like the sound of your alarm clock. I really wish it was, but because I have scientifically tried it out and failed I have to accept and conclude that alarm tones have to always sound horrible. 

Demola, TCC