The Most Powerful Button In My Life – Welcome To My Bed.

Lately, I have had some serious trouble getting out of bed. I don’t have to be at work until 11 – which translates into feet-on-the-ground at 9:30 – but it’s usually a good idea to get up earlier and use that valuable time to get some work done. And, well… I deserve some credit for trying. My problem: Snooze.

I have been a lifelong fan of the Snooze button. In high school, and my mom can definitely verify this, I would set my alarm for 16 minutes (two equal Snooze sessions) earlier than I needed to be awake. Mom, being the good parent she is, would be in her own bed listening to the radio, anxiously awaiting signs of movement from Brett’s and my side of the hall. Then, in minute 13 of my Snooze session, Mom would annoyingly barge into my room in that actually non-barging, quiet way that moms do, and remind me that I had to go to school, while I’m grumbling some combination of the phrases “I KNOW!” and “..three minutes.”

College was a little different. Melissa was also a huge fan of the snooze button, but her alarm was basically a foghorn, and she and I both dreaded hearing that more than once a morning.

And then there was Jeanette. You see, J doesn’t even need the snooze button – she’ll just let the alarm go off for a while, like it’s the alarm clock’s God-given right to happily beep uninterrupted for half an hour. Our second year as roommates, we had basically the same little Timex alarms, which beeped in the same pitch. Now, I don’t know about you, but my alarm sends panic through my veins – I mean, my heart earnestly skips a beat and my head feels as though I’m about to pass out. So it got to the point where J’s alarm would start to go off and if she didn’t hit it right away, I would confusedly convince myself that it was my alarm – and would flail around and smack mine in a huge drama-comedy of unsuccessful commotion.

I’m going to have to say that Sarah Reddon was the best alarm clock roommate, because we both properly used Snooze the way it should be for those summer months. I don’t even remember any alarm clock stories, so it must have been a pretty harmonious waking up process.

These days, things are a little different. I sleep in my loft again for the first time since freshman year, which presents a waking-up challenge of its own. First, who really wants to crawl down a ladder to be awake? At the first beep of the alarm, that is the most daunting challenge of the day. Second, if you’ve ever seen me getting ready for bed, you know that I can’t sleep unless I have a glass of water within close proximity. I have this theory about drinking some water before I fall asleep and then having some in the morning keeps me hydrated and allergy-free, and therefore helps me feel more awake and clear-headed. And since a glass of water is virtually impossible in an unstable, squeaky loft, I haven’t had this extra hydration to get me up. And so I lay in bed, wishing I had some water but not wishing hard enough to climb down the ladder.

Another challenge: my alarm clock has to sit in a basket I tied to the end of my loft. This basket, originally intended by an ex-boyfriend’s mom to be a shower caddy for my first year of college, now tied with shoelaces to the guard bars on my loft (oh yes, I have guardrails, it's like I'm 7 again and capable of rolling off) has come in handy as the holder of not only my alarm clock but also a stash of tissues, my Bible, a journal, and the flashlight I need in order to see anything when I’m up in bed at night. (Note: the flashlight used to be Bedtime Star, a little amazing star-shaped touch light that almost made it through all four years at Etown and many times defended me from imminent smothering or teddy-snatching by a certain roommate, may it rest in peace.) So let me think how to explain the weight of this situation… it’s a multi-part process. Originally, I made my bed so that my head was up by the ladder and against the wall, just because it’s normal to have like a headboard. But the problem was that I’m extremely light-sensitive when I sleep, and I would wake up at 5:30 when the sun came up because I was facing the windows. Obviously it’s just not a good situation for a Snooze-button-lover to wake up with the sun instead of the alarm. So I switched to the other end, propping my body pillow up against the guardrail as a light blocker, and nestling my head on a normal pillow behind it. So... ladder, body, head on pillow, body pillow, railing, basket, and then alarm in amongst other items – that’s the length of my bed, which puts a body pillow, a railing, a basket and basket contents in between me and my alarm.

And this brings me to the final reason why the Snooze has so much power in my waking-up process. Yesterday, I woke up to the original sounding of the alarm, and reached my arm up and over, fumbled for the Timex, and hit snooze, all while staying flat on my back. Then, very reliably, it beeped again eight minutes later. This time, a little more restless, I flopped up and over – landing with my pillow under my torso, my body pillow under my head and one shoulder, and my hand in the basket… aka, The Most Comfortable Sleeping Position of My Life.

You may also know that I sleep with a teddy bear; his name is Frosty. This picture is of me with Frosty in our heydays – after years of being squashed by me, he is no longer this fluffy and I no longer hang out in Pampers boxes.

Luckily for everybody invovled, at the time this picture was taken it looks like I was growing out of my fat stage - we're talking flub rolls and four chins fat stage. And FYI, I’m not at all ashamed by having a teddy bear, so don’t even bother using it against me because it will not bring me down. But anyway, because I’ve always slept with Frosty tuckled under my arm/shoulder, I always have to have some sort of arm and shoulder support to be comfortable. And while I’m quite sentimentally fond of him, Frosty isn’t vital – if I go on a trip somewhere I’ll usually just take a sweatshirt and that does the trick – but it has to be something. (If you haven’t noticed, I’m a Princess and the Pea type of high-maintenance sleeper.) So you can maybe understand then why this incredible cushiony second-Snooze-alarm position was so amazing, with its torso support in all the right places. The problem – and you know this when you’re laying there for eight minutes more and waiting for the third Snooze opportunity – is that 16 hours later, when you try to go to sleep for the night, you will absolutely positively NOT be able to replicate the amazingness of that position, not matter how much you try to memorize all of the details. So you just need to stay there for a couple Snoozes and get your fill of it, you know? Maybe even - gasp - turn the alarm off altogether, as I unwisely did yesterday.

I’m pretty sure Snooze is therefore the driving force in my day. If I can’t hit Snooze, I begrudge the fact that I don’t get any extra time to wake up leisurely. If I do hit Snooze, I inevitably will not get up, because this is one button you simply can’t hit just once. And either way you have it, I’m not a happy camper when I crawl out of bed, because I’m either annoyed that I couldn’t hit Snooze, or I’m annoyed at myself for hitting Snooze for so long.

In the end, I think Mom was the best alarm – getting me royally angry sure got my blood boiling enough to wake up. AND, since she would come back later with threats of water buckets or opening the window blinds so the sun could shine directly into my eyes, she came with her own automatic, no-button-needed, fire-under-your-ass Snooze feature. Maybe I can market this?