Ring! Ring! Ring!

Not waking up to your alarm clock is one of my biggest pet peeves, especially when you share a room with another person.  If you want some extra sleep in the morning then set your alarm clock for the last possible minute so that you can get as much sleep as possible.  It is absolutely positively unacceptable to set your alarm clock, let it go off, snooze, and repeat... while someone else is in the room trying to sleep!

Let me share a story with you... one that I am NOT proud of... to help you understand.

Once upon a time, I was in college.  And I lived in a house with lots of other ladies.  And, I slept in a room referred to as a quad.  That is, 4 people shared the room (but there were some closets that separated us).  Nonetheless, while the closets were a visual barrier, I could hear everything else going on in the other side of the room.

Goodness me, I cannot believe that I am even sharing this publicly.  Please do not judge me.  I need my sleep people...  I don't know what to tell you.

OK... moving on...

One of the girls (Anne - not her real name) on the other side of the room had an 8:00 a.m. class.  {{Who does that, by the way???} She would set her alarm and it would go off... and she wouldn't hear it... YES... it would scream into our area FOREVER and she would not hear it.  It was blaring INTO HER EAR... and she would sleep right through it.

Step 1:  the rest of us in the room talked about her behind her back... talking about how rude this was.

Step 2:  her "roommate" approached her about waking up to her alarm.  Anne's nicely explained, "I cannot hear my alarm.  I can't even get up for work in the summer.   My mom has to come wake me up.  There is nothing I can do about this."

Step 3:  Not believeing this excuse I calmly confronted her about the alarm thing and asked what we could do to help.  She again very nicely explained, "I cannot hear my alarm. I can't even get up for work in the summer. My mom has to come wake me up. There is nothing I can do about this."

This is where it gets interesting folks. 

Clearly, she could not hear her alarm.  Clearly, she needed some help getting up in the morning.  Right?  I decided that I was going to help her get up in the morning.  I would help to make sure that she got up in a timely manner and that she was not late for class.  My methods also made it so that we would not all be awake all morning long listening to a siren going off in our ears.

{{Again, this is not my proudest moment, but I need to demonstrate how much this bothers me.}}

The next time Anne's alarm went off... I waited... and I waited... and I waited... and then I... walked into her side of the room... stepped onto her bed... started jumping up and down as high as I could... and started s-c-r-e-a-m-i-n-g "Get the f*** up!  Get the f*** up!"... over and over again.

Oh yes, I did.

When she asked me what I was doing, I calmly explained, "since you are not able to get up with your alarm in the morning then I am going to do this every morning to help you get up."

Do you know... Anne never said a word about this, ever again... and she was always able to get up with her alarm clock from that day forward.  Amazing!

How embarrassed was I when facebook came along and I got a friend request from Anne.  OMG!  How embarrassing?  But she's totally normal.. married... with kids.  Totally cool!

I tell you all of this because I married someone just-like-Anne.  This situation was horrible when we were first married and both needed to to get up in the morning for work.  Finally, he got a job as a real estate agent which meant that he could get up later than me.  Now, he is still a real estate agent, but I am about to hit my crunch time at work and he will be ending his day early to get the kids and prepare dinner and stuff.  Well, you can't start your day late AND end your day early.  So, he is starting his day early with me.  

Our nightly conversation goes something like this:

{{Keep in mind that my cell phone doubles as the alarm clock in our house and his cell phone sits on the kitchen counter all night long.}}

Dear Husband:  What time are you getting up tomorrow?

Me:  6:30. 

Dear Husband:  OK, wake me up at 6:15.

Our mornings go something like this:

6:15 a.m.

Me:  Hey, it's 6:15.

Dear Husband:  Huh?

Me:  It's 6:15. 

Dear Husband:  {{rolls over}}  OK.

6:30 a.m.

I get up and get into the shower.  Dear Husband pops up and wants to fight over bathroom space.  I'm not kidding.

hahahahahaha... this week he asked me to wake him up at 6:00 a.m.  Really?  I'm not getting up at 6 a.m. so that I can keep telling you to get up and you... keep sleeping.  Dude - I'm sleeping in.  Why torture yourself like this?  I just don't get it. 

Do you wake up with your alarm or do you keep sleeping?  Why set the alarm if you aren't going to get up?  Why do people do this?