Wake up call

This week I'd like to talk to you about the worst torture instrument ever concocted in history by human intelligence. Yes folks....the alarm clock. WikipediA describes it as a clock that is designed to make a loud noise at a specific time which means too early and too loud in the morning for most of us. Actually the concept is not new. It is rumored that the Greek philosopher Plato had a similar device to signal the start of his lectures. Jumping ahead a bit,the production of the infamous alarm clock was halted in 1942 as factories were converted to aid in the war effort. However, the geniuses in power at the time, ordered production resumed because of a high rate of absenteeism in the work force . This appears to be why we all get shaken out of our peaceful sleep mode, a hyper production schedule during the second world war. Where would the world be without wars...? Somewhere between Eden and Paradise I suspect. But that's another subject just down the road.
Anyway, this ode to the ingenuity of capitalism which has been ensconced in practically every bedroom in North America continues to prod us without mercy on a daily basis. The loud repeated beeps are especially irritating and reminiscent of sirens that sent people running for shelter during air raids . Most of them now have the radio option so instead of being jarred with incoherent decibels, you can wake up to Led Zeppelin's Black Dog or a newscaster describing an horrific crime seen. Tried it..didn't like it. I remember in my salad days not having an alarm clock. I did have a tv in my bedroom so, always the tinkerer, I decided to purchase a plug-in timer to turn on the set at the time of my choosing. Proudly, I enabled the whole system on a Saturday, activating the timer to 9 am the next day for a test and proceeded with my day and evening. In those days my roommate and I often went out to clubs and indulged in alcohol and nature's best, coming home in the wee hours to crash. Sunday morning I awoke in a total sweat from a apocalyptic nightmare. I dreamed I was being poked by a horde of terrifying blood thirsty demons in a fiery pit with no possible escape. Turns out that my tv had been turned on as planned but that I unknowingly had selected a channel that featured one of those evangelical Sunday preachers. He was sermonizing his flock on the perils of sin. Obviously this dogmatic lecture had pervaded my unconscious dream state, prompting the aforementioned nightmare. Too bad I wasn't tuned in to a porn channel...I would've never wanted to get up. I often wonder why nobody thought of using the sound of washing waves on the seashore or the melodic daybreak chirping of small birds in lieu of that cataclysmic beep. My wife says that we need a strong wake up sound. I think it's just conditioning. It would be nice to have a radio channel that would be entirely devoted to softly waking people with a soothing voice, prompting you to cheerfully rise and shine. A lot of people use their cellphones as alarm clocks these days. My wife does and believe me it's also annoying. When she first started doing this without telling me, I would quickly jump from bed and scramble in the dark to get the phone, thinking that at that early time in the morning, it had to be an emergency.
We do have an internal biological clock not unlike the one in our computers. The problem is we have forgotten how to use it. And even if we did, I don't think it would be compatible with today's hectic pace. So we'll continue to suffer at the hands of these dreaded machines which are a constant reminder of how little sleep we get. According to recent studies, our current lifestyle is listed as the number one culprit in sleep loss and the side effects are..well....alarming (no pun intended...). So much so that you''ll want to use public transportation instead of facing off in the frantic morning rush hour, battling for your share of the road with a multitude of sleep deprived drivers. http://www.sleep-deprivation.com/ is where you wan to go to find out more.
Finally, if you find yourself or someone you care for missing out on valuable sleep time like I once did, consider this a friendly wake up call.

Footnote: The picture, "Running out" was done in Adobe Photoshop with the "Liquify" filter. It's a fun tool to use and it's most often used for face reconstruction. An Omni light filter was added for a more dramatic effect as was the drop shadow on the melted clock dial. And of course, having forgotten to wipe my night table, a lot of retouching was done.