Most Sundays I set my alarm clock at a time which is far too over ambitious. This is usually inspired by guilt, having failed to achieve all the things I intended to do on Saturday. Come Saturday evening, I am adamant that I will get an early start in order to make the most of my remaining weekend; maybe even kick-start my body with an early session at the gym. This always seems a good plan, because when I set the alarm I am in a state of Saturday night of alcohol-fuelled bravado; but paradoxically it is the same drunkenness which actually makes getting up so much more challenging when the harsh reality of morning arrives.
So come Sunday morning, I’ll be abruptly roused by the cruel shrill tones of my alarm. But I do not jump from the covers. Any prior resolve to seize the day soon subsides to the temptation that being a Sunday, I can have one last lie in.
Not even bothering to get out of bed to cross the room, I let the alarm call ring out until silence is resumed and I can sink peacefully back into my pillow. Even after all these years, I still never seem to learn the basic lesson that ‘bearing out of the bell’ is only ever of short-term value: What makes this short-sightedness even sillier, is that my alarm is of the sort that lets you snooze a while, say five or ten minutes, and then proceeds to chirp off again.
On any usual weekday, the second alarm is the one which will make me conscious of the passing time and rouse me into action. But this is Sunday – I do not have the same urgency to get up. Maybe I should have just turned the alarm off altogether when it sounded off the first time, but I reason that only by riding it out, I am able to fully appreciate the novelty value of being allowed to lie-in past this second alarm call.
Another five or ten minutes pass in silence. The digital chiming springs in to life once again; and once again I do not. Indeed, I cannot. For this is now much deeper than a simple dozing disruption; it has become a battle of wills - a moral issue of Man versus Machine. Who will give up first? Will this aural torment eventually force me to step from under the covers and turn the alarm off once and for all? Or will I be able to stand (or lie) strong for long enough to weary this inanimate object of its perpetual wailing?
The answer?
Of course I will.
The stupid thing never manages to maintain its bleeping interruptions for more than an hour. My laziness is much more motivated than that! And the most tragic thing of all is that this sorry victory of wills will often actually be the greatest achievement I’ll manage all day.
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