Night in Tunisia

possessed alarm clock

A bit of levity after Tiara's rant

Last night we discovered that something was amiss in our appartment. Generally, after shutting off the lights and cursing and turning them back on again to set the nightly alarm, we quickly shut them off again. Generally, the alarm clock is in the same place on a plastic lawn chair stationned next to Tiara's side of the bed. Generally, it only works in 12 hour time with an AM/PM indicator.

Last night it said it was 18:88 in the year 2888 in the month 18 and day 88... That seemed wrong to us.

Thing is, it refused to be persuaded of the rightness of our opinion and patiently ignored our attempts to change it. We tried hitting reset. We tried bashing it a little. We tried hitting the pretty little buttons that had hitherto meant something. nothing.

We set it down, sighed, and the bloody thing went off. Tiara and I looked at each other. We looked at the clock. It read 12:00 AM and 14 seconds - 15 seconds - 16 seconds and so on in neat little second-long intervals. I reached out and gingerly took the alarm clock back in hand. I set the time effortlessly. I looked at Tiara - and she at me - with a somewhat stunned expression, and set the alarm for the following morning. Then I set the alarm down and we turned off the lights.

We lay there for somewhere around 8 minutes barely breathing, getting our hearts back under control (the alarm is more than a little jarring), and getting settled for sleep.

It went off. Loud and in a different pattern... A little chunk of the not-so-catchy electronic minuet - some choking sounds, electronic fuzz, a little more of the tune... We turned the light on again. Apparently we were back in 2888.

I picked up the machine and slid it into its casing and chucked it into the hall. "I have a watch with an alarm in it," I told Tiara. She smiled an 'isn't that nice' kind of a smile and stared off in the direction of the bleeps and chocked off sounds of the alarm clock. All of a sudden it was quiet.

Tiara looked at me, got up out of bed, bent over, picked up the clock and I heard her set it down in the living room. She came back into the room smiled at me and turned off the lights. At which point the alarm went off again.

I heard the bed creak as she lay down in it, put a hand over my heart and intently let it go...

It woke us up at 4 am. That's a little early. Then it was quiet.

It went off in echo to my watch this morning. We tried to ignore it as we exited the appartment to the gym...

posted by Loren @ 11:06 a.m.