No Snooze is Good Snooze

This is early morning at my house: bee-dee-beep, bee-dee-beep, bee-dee-beep. Followed by nine minutes of silence and another round of bee-dee-beep, bee-dee-beep, bee-dee-beep. It’s a sequence repeated minimally four more times. No, this is not my darn alarm clock. It’s my husband’s. He’s addicted to snooze.  

Is there a 12-step program he could attend? Or aversion therapy? Can I send him off to rehab? Perhaps, I’m being too harsh. But, people, it’d be one thing if he just pressed his snooze alarm repeatedly every morning, it’s another thing that he never hears it! But, I do, and I’m deaf in one ear! 

That’s right, my personal Rip Van Winkle blissfully sleeps through relentless bee-dee-beeps - sometimes 15 minutes straight! I know because I’ve had plenty of opportunity to lie in bed and seethe, I mean, time it. Thus, every nine minutes, I have to wake him up to hear his alarm. Me! The half-hearing girl! I’m his snooze! I’m pretty sure this wasn’t in our marriage vows. 

I understand the value of alarm clocks. Every day they save us from missing work or from being just a lazy good-for-nothing ne’er-do-well. The problem here isn’t the device, it’s the operator. Or is it? Perhaps, we should blame, I mean, examine who invented snooze in the first place. 

According to horologists, those “party animals” who study the measurement of time, the idea of extended sleep in nine minute increments began in 1956 when General Electric released the “Snooz-Alarm.” In truth, Telechron manufactured these pushers of snooze. But GE sold them; I say quite contrary to their motto “We Bring Good Things To Life.” Really, GE? Doesn’t bring my husband to life.

I’m so fatigued by endless snoozes that I’m considering purchasing the vintage GE “Novel-Ette Snooz-Alarm” on eBay just to throw it against the wall. Maybe the GE marketing department was also exhausted; how else to explain that they misspelled snooze on their own clocks!

And nine minutes? Seems a rather random duration, almost cruel. Just enough time to count how few hours of sleep I got and wonder what the hell I’ll wear to work before drifting off to slumber and ... bee-dee-beep, bee-dee-beep! Argh! 

The clock engineers were aiming for 10 minutes of snooze. However, the mechanics of the gears way back in ye olden days of the 50s could either produce an exact nine or a little over 10 minutes. Sticklers for detail and torment, they went for the solid nine. Wow! Thank goodness I have that extra whole minute! Like that’ll make a difference on weekday mornings when I can’t find my second shoe.

Meanwhile, here we are 65 years later and nary an alarm clock to be found in most bedrooms. As iPhones wake us out of our stupor with a variety of ringtone options, now, one can be a connoisseur of what irritates them the most. I prefer the classic, I mean, why gussy up the messenger of doom?

My husband is dumbfounded how his snooze could annoy me to such a degree. I considered explaining to him that any sound jarring you out of sleep repeatedly would be akin to torture. However, since I prefer an illustrative method, I held a bell to his face and rang it every nine minutes while he was sleeping. Apparently, I’m so tired I’ve lost my mind. Besides, he slept through it anyway.

In case you’re wondering, yes, I’m still married. I’ve given up my quixotic quest to banish snooze from the bedroom. Instead, each morning I use those 54 minutes, in nine minute increments between waking up my husband, to lie in bed and contemplate a world without snooze - a world where unicorns frolic with fairies and ... zzzzzzzzz - bee-dee-beep, bee-dee-beep, bee-dee-beep! Argh!