I really don’t like getting out of bed.
I never have. Ever since I was a pre-pubescent, I’ve had this problem.
Lately, it’s gotten worse. Here I am, running my own business, with a staff of three to six to keep track of on any given day. And all I want to do is lay around in bed!
I’ve tried everything…it didn’t work to have the alarm clock across the room. I’d just get right back into bed, time and time again, even for as little as five minute snoozes.
An upbeat playlist backfired. It was too easy to shut off and go back to sweet slumber.
I even followed one blogger’s advice and practiced getting out of bed for a solid hour one night. I’d get set the alarm for two minutes later, get into bed, try to get into the sleeping rhythm and then — when the alarm went off — I’d practice jumping out of bed with energy and enthusiasm the way I dream I might. Time and time again I practiced. The next morning I went back to snoozing like nothing had happened.
Can you blame me, when I have such an adorable feline beckoning me back to bed??
I’ve made the mornings incredibly easy for myself. The coffee pot goes off at 7:30 — the first thing I get to do is take a sip of nice, strong coffee. The boyfriend makes me breakfast. All I have to do is get my ass out of bed.
And I can’t do it.
One day I was shopping at fab.com and I found the answer: Clocky, the Rolling Alarm Clock.
This alarm clock is designed with people like me in mind. The alarm clock goes off and rolls away, so no matter how much I don’t want to, I have to go chase it.
Or so I thought.
Day 1
At long last, Clocky arrived in the mail. I was stoked. Tomorrow, I told myself, tomorrow will be the beginning of a new day!! I’ll get up early! I’ll exercise before work! I’ll come in so sun-shiney-happy that my team won’t know what hit them!
I set the alarm. I went to bed. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. It was a glorious sleep.
The next morning, the alarm goes off and Clocky takes off from his perch on my nightstand. Onto the floor he goes and boom! He’s stuck next to a stool.
Sleepy me reaches down out of bed, picks him up, presses snooze and back to dreamland. Fail. Though Clocky did succeed in scaring the wits out of poor Gus. But even that hilarity wasn’t enough to keep me from dreamland.
Day 2
Determined to make this work, I moved the offensive stool to give Clocky a clear path to somewhere hard to find. Tomorrow, by God, I will have to hunt and hunt to find this beeping, rolly creature. I will be awake!!
Moving the stool helped. Clocky rolled off and away. And then under the bed. I spent a solid two minutes fishing it out and was, indeed, awake. It was a success! The beginning of the new me!
Day 3
I did my best to ensure that the previous day’s success would reoccur. I cleared all obstacles from Clocky’s way. I went to bed. Oh, did it feel good to be a new person! To be someone with a working method to ensure that I got up early!! Ooooh, yes, the sky was the limit from now on.
But I neglected one thing: my intellect. Over the past two days I’d learned that there was a slight delay between when Clocky goes off and when he rolls off my nightstand. The next morning, he went off.
I acted quickly. I wrestled my hand from the covers, and in one quick gesture, pulled the drawer of my nightstand out. There Clocky was, a rolling and a beeping away in the confines of my nightstand drawer.
Another quick gesture later, he was silenced and I was back to sleep, happily dreaming of a time when I might actually learn to get up early.
Day 4
I had spent a whopping $30 or something on Clocky, and I wasn’t going to give up yet. Perhaps…perhaps, if I combine Clocky with the alarm-clock-across-the-room-method, perhaps then I would have the magic recipe to my new life!
Luckily for me, my boyfriend’s dresser was all way across the room and it had plenty of room for Clocky to live. That is until he woke up, and rolled away and I would finally get out of bed on time!
With a sense of dread, I placed him up there. Why dread, you ask? Well, I had an inkling that this method just might work, and, the truth of the matter was, I didn’t want to get out of bed on time. I wanted to lay around and cuddle until the last possible moment.
Well, I placed Clocky up there, and set the alarm. I went to bed, knowing that my slumber would be dramatically disturbed come 7:30 am. And come 7:30 am, it was. Clocky did his job, and did it well. It took me a solid five minutes to dig him out from under the chair he wound up under.
Reluctantly, I stayed awake.
The next few days continued to see Clocky doing his job and doing it well. But lucky for me, I had sabotaged the whole thing. You see, Clocky takes AAA batteries. And when he came, I couldn’t find my fresh AAA batteries. So I put in whatever ones I did find, and they just didn’t have much juice.
Day 16
Clocky is set atop the boyfriend’s dresser, waiting to do his job. But the sabotage finally worked its magic. By 7:30 am, Clocky was out of juice and unable to run around. I slept in unknowingly, yet happily. And I have yet to put new ones in.
What can I say? This damn rolly alarm clock just does too good a job. And I just plain don’t want to get out of bed.
