Just five more minutes… please!

But… Seriously

Ajay Hotchandani

Often times you wake up in the morning to one of the most annoying noises you have ever heard and every morning you hear it, over and over and over. No I am not talking about the sound of your spouse, in-laws or children.

If I had to name the top ten things that dark evil forces of the underworld have created on that list would be one thing that we can’t live without unless we want to get fired. I am, of course, referring to the evil nature of the Alarm Clock — SNOOZE button. I think it is a really cruel to wake us up only to give us the option to fall asleep again only to wake us up again just when we get comfortable and fall asleep again.

With the advent of better technology, now we can set multiple alarms on the same device. Myself, for example, I have 3 alarms set on my phone to wake me up in the morning, and the sad part is, sometimes I’m still late for work.

The first alarm goes off and I wake up tossing and turning, happy that I’ve made it to see another day, but that happiness is short lived when I realise I have to go to work. Now this is the dangerous part. I know that in a couple of minutes my alarm will go off and I’ll be woken up again (assuming I fell asleep). And like a pain in my pants, that wretched sound goes off (the sound is not from my pants). This time I’m not caught off guard, however, I am starting to get annoyed. But I silence it like I silence my nephew when he is making too much noise. The final alarm goes off. This time I have no choice, or at least it would seem like it. I silence it and do the worse thing possible. I’m sure quite a few of you can relate to me on this one. I manage to convince myself that I can stay in bed for five more minutes, not fall asleep and get out of bed without any coercion or force.

I have had some really close calls, where I turn over and notice it’s 7.59am! Believe me, that is one of the fastest ways to get me out of bed (well that and some other things I can’t write about here). I don’t know how I do it, but I am very persuasive when it comes to persuading myself, and I should know better when I’m lying, especially when I’m lying to myself!

So what do we do to combat this evil? Some attempts have been made to make waking up more pleasurable. ipod has a docking station that allows you to play music and wake up to the sound of your favorite Bollywood songs; Jan pehchan ho by Rafi or Ek taraf uska ghar by Pankaj Udhas. Then there was the innovative idea where an alarm clock was placed in a ball that rolls around and you have to get out of bed, find it and then turn it off. What they didn’t take into account was the amounts of people that took the ball and threw it, inadvertently breaking something like a window.

But all of those ideas pale in comparison to my genius alarm clock idea. Here it is. When the alarm on the phone goes off you are required to do a series of tasks that will take at least 30 seconds. These tasks could include solving a puzzle, doing a Sudoku or even just sending five text messages. Whatever it is, you have to do it or else….. your phone will automatically call any number in your contact list and there will be a ‘fail safe’ mechanism that prevents you from hanging up, which means they have to answer and hang up. You will be able to programme it to call long distance or your boss.

If all else fails, hire someone to come in and slap you… that will get you going!

Tags: Ajay Hotchandani

Category: Opinion