On most days the very first sound I hear in the morning is someone yelling "FUCK!", and strangely it's not coming from yours truly Cursey McSwearsalot, it's G--he of the infinitely more broad and normally vulgarity-free vocabulary.
The reason for his daily morning swear is simple. He is a heavy sleeper, can snooze right through a jackhammer outside the bedroom window kind of sleeper, so we own the worlds most ear piercing, god-awful blare making, wake the neighbors and the dogs two blocks away (and the dead while it's at it) alarm clocks you can buy. The packaging boasted a guarantee that no one could sleep through its noise, and they didn't lie. It was designed by auditory torture experts or something, the decibel level of its clashing minor notes the pure distillation of the sound of a million thirteen year olds in a million suburban bedrooms with a million untuned guitars playing the Trinity Of Rock at full volume, simultaneously.
So it wakes you up alright. However G likes to get up at the crack of bloody dawn (to do a bit of work from home), and I usually do not need to rise for another hour or more. So in an effort to let me sleep, G has developed Super Spidey Sense for when the alarm rings. On the very first second of the very first bleat his arm whips over in a flash and turns the brain mangling machine off before I'm any the wiser. He promptly falls back asleep, of course. When he wakes two hours later and notices the time, he sits up, realizes his Spidey Sense has foiled him again, screams "FUCK!" (which pops me out of sleep right quick) and thus our day begins.
This morning we were discussing the psycho/spiritual impact of our morning ritual. What, if anything, having the word 'fuck' begin our day each day has done or is doing to our quality of life; what subliminal toll it takes on our psyches. If you believe that thoughts are actions and words have energy, it would only stand to reason that beginning the day with disappointment, anger, and panic would have a negative impact on a person. Might have something to do with our sour disposition most of the time. Our sometimes bleak outlook on life. Our bad backs.
Since there's nothing we can do about the alarm situation--he's done all the tricks, even put it across the room. He's on autopilot now. He'll get up, turn it off, turn around, and crawl back in bed and be asleep in two seconds--we thought at the very least it would be worth it to experiment with exchanging 'fuck' for something more positive. Try to program his brain to blurt out a more embracing, upbeat sentiment for the day, like "Yippee!" or "Top of the morning!" Or maybe something nonsensical yet filled with happy associations like "Cake!" or "Bunnies!"
We'll let you know how that's working out for us. Worst case scenario we'll at least get some mileage out of his failed attempts. Think about it, he wakes up, screams FUCK! out of habit, rubs his eyes and adds, "I mean yippee. Or...what was it? Bunnies."
Posted by Antigeist at February 6, 2006 10:29 AMi love the title of this.
is it possible that one of those gradual alarms, that starts quiet and gets loud, would work? it seems counterintuitive, since one assumes that he would just sleep through until it gets LOUD, but maybe it would work on the spidey sense part of him and prevent that part from going back to sleep?
otherwise, i suggest "FROLIC!" because it starts and ends with the same letter sounds as the current word and is fun to say.
Posted by: anne at February 6, 2006 12:21 PMI think FROLIC! is the clear replacement. So easy to slide into, in that 'there are children in the room' way.