Matter of Laugh or Death

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

ALARM CLOCK MESSES WITH MY MIND

 My alarm clock is trying to drive me crazy. That may sound a bit extreme, but I’m convinced it is true.

 It all began a few months ago as I was wandering aimlessly down an aisle in K-Mart. I don’t as a rule wander aimlessly in K-Mart for fun—I find that Home Depot provides much more excitement during aimless wanderings since there is always the chance a pallet of lumber will fall 80 feet onto your head. Hey, just call me a risk-taking thrill seeker!

 No, I was in K-Mart on an important mission for my wife. She sent me out to buy something and as usual she said, “Write it down on a list,” to which I replied indignantly, “A list? It’s only one thing! I don’t need to write it down. I’ll remember.”

 So, of course, the moment I walked into the store, my mind went blank, except for a little voice in my head which innocently asked, “What are you looking for, pal?”

 I answered, “None of your business.”

 The voice said, “You forgot, didn’t you?”

 I replied, “I know exactly what I’m here to buy.”

 Then the voice laughed and said, “Yeah, sure. Then why are you wandering aimlessly down each aisle? Why don’t you go right to where the item is and buy it?”

 “I like to browse, if you don’t mind,” I said.

 As I continued to wander, I thought to myself, “Boy, I sure hope I see whatever it is I’m suppose to buy. I don’t want to have to call my wife and ask her.”

 The voice immediately said, “I heard that.”

(Gee, I don’t understand why people turn the other way and run when they see me coming down the aisle of a department store, do you?)

 I walked down another aisle and something caught me eye. It wasn’t what my wife wanted (I never did find out what I was suppose to get for her). It was a cute little digital alarm clock, on sale for only nine bucks. “I don’t need a new alarm clock,” I thought to myself, “but who can pass up such a bargain?”

The voice said, “You’re hopeless, pal.”

At first, the new alarm clock seemed fairly normal. It had one-inch glowing red numbers to display the time of day, and a loud BIZZT, BIZZT, BIZZT to wake you up at whatever time you set the alarm. But then, after a few weeks, weird things began to happen.

The alarm would go off at 5 a.m. on Sundays, the only day I can sleep late, but would not go off on the days I had to be up early—like the time I had to meet my boss for my annual employee review. Running into his office forty-five minutes late, unshaven and without socks (I’m pretty sure I had pants), might explain a few of the “needs improvement” items. (The loud argument I had with the voice in the middle of the review probably didn’t help either.)

Then the alarm clock started to get nasty. It would display the wrong time whenever I glanced over at it. For example, on nights when I needed to be asleep by 10 p.m., I would be in bed reading and every time I looked at the clock it would display 9:45 or 9:51 or some other time still before 10 o’clock. But as soon as I closed the book and turned the light off, I would notice that the clock showed 11:15 or 12:02. “Rats!” I would mutter, “How did that happen?”

In the middle of the night it was worse. I’d wake up and glance at the clock. It would read something like 1:30. “Good,” I would think, “I still have a few more hours to sleep.” But then I would close my eyes for no more than ten seconds and be startled by the loud BIZZT, BIZZT, BIZZT. When I looked over, the display had suddenly jumped to 5:00.

I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on here: as part of an exotic CIA experiment, government scientists developed a fiendish new psychological torture device. They needed to conduct tests on some unsuspecting guinea pig, so they planted their secret weapon, disguised as a typical alarm clock, on sale in a typical department store.

Well, they picked the wrong guy. It will take a lot more than a fancy CIA alarm clock to mess with my head. To keep from going crazy, I just brought that thing out to the garage and smashed it to pieces with a hammer. The voice told me to do it.

©2000