Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Of Alarm Clocks and Phones by Konnie Enos

When I was younger it wasn’t uncommon for a family to have several clocks in their home. From nice mantel or grandfather clocks to face clocks and alarm clocks.

Nowadays I think they are less common.

I don’t think we’ve ever hung a clock in our house. The only clocks in our house are on the stove and microwave, including no alarm clocks.

I can remember the alarm clock Jerry had when we got married. It was one of those clock radio things where you could set the alarm to turn on the radio or blare an alarm. You could also set the sound level of the alarm.

This, of course, led to me shoving my husband out of bed because I was not expecting that blaring alarm to startle me from a sound sleep. I could say that was our first disagreement as a couple (we’d just gotten married).

He said he needed something that loud to wake him up. (Please note, it hadn’t woken him up. I did.) I told him to set it to wake me up and I’d get him up even if I had to shove him out of bed every morning. He hasn’t needed that loud of an alarm ever since. He now regularly wakes up to his alarm with me sleeping right through it. Thankfully, since I’m not getting up at 4 a.m.

But I wasn’t thinking about how Jerry is no longer a deep sleeper, but how few clocks there are in our house. We don’t need them. Everyone has a phone or some other tech that has a clock/alarm function. I have three devices with those functions. Other than glancing at the time while I’m on it, I’ve never used the clock function on my laptop, but I know it’s available, alarms and all. I’ve also looked at the one on my tablet but don’t use it other than to check the time.

My phone is a different matter. I do have several alarms set on it plus I use the timer. I also, out of habit, check the time on my phone when I get up in the morning.

I’m not looking for messages or missed phone calls, I’m looking at the time but in doing so, I usually find a text or two that was sent while I was asleep. Often it’s from one of my boys who tend to text me while on their breaks. Royce works graveyards and Tony has to get to work before I wake up.

One morning last week Tony scared the beejeebies out of me by calling at 6 a.m. Since I have a different ringtone for everyone listed as family on my phone, I knew it was someone in the family and woke up in a panic. I didn’t even take my CPAP off before answering it.

If someone is calling that early in the morning you just automatically assume it’s an emergency. And I assume it was. Jerry had the car but not his phone and Melinda needed the car. Melinda was not happy. She almost missed her appointment.

Though getting jarred awake by a phone call is not what got me thinking about clocks. It was my habit of checking my phone first thing in the morning to see what time it was. Mainly because Monday morning I picked up my phone to see what time it was and was greeted by a text message from Bonnie. The ding of a message coming through hadn’t woken me up but she’d sent it about 15 minutes before I did wake up.

And, of course, since it was that early in the morning, I assumed it was at least urgent though she hadn’t scared me half to death with an early morning phone call. The succinct text was more than sufficient to have me concerned.

After our brief conversation, it occurred to me that I probably would not have seen her text until I thought to check my phone again, or I heard the ding of another text coming through. While I know some people tend to keep their phones on them and check them constantly, I do not. I happen to know that I’ve missed messages, even calls, that came through while I was in the kitchen and my phone was in the bedroom. I didn’t see them until another message or call came through or I thought to check the time.

Melinda is the same way. Royce is not. He always has at least his smartwatch. Jerry tends to forget his phone. Tony will ignore his phone even when it’s beside him.

How often do you use/check your phone?

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

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