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.
