The same weekend the time changed, my alarm clock broke. I had one of those Baby Ben wind-up clocks, the second or third in my entire life, the only kind I’ve ever really had.

H.E. has always given me a hard time about Baby Ben, saying I must be crazy to wind that clunky little thing up every night before I go to bed, only to wake up to an unforgivingly harsh, clangy loud alarm that pulls me out of some circus dream, an alarm I can’t simply silence and forget because it wouldn’t bother trying to wake me up again. He recommended I get an electric one with a snooze button and VERY LARGE RED DIGITAL NUMBERS because I am forever asking him the time when I am much too bleary-eyed to read the clock.

My excuse for not getting one of those was always: “What if the power goes out in the middle of the night? Wouldn’t I be sorry then?”

And H.E. would just roll his eyes heavenward and shake his head.

So when I tried to wind my Baby Ben on Sunday night, and the little winding alarm set dial came loose in my fingers to my unbelieving shock, he took it into his hands to choose my next clock for me. He got me the sort that he described, an electric alarm clock with red digital letters about four miles high. There is even a nine volt battery back-up to allay my fears that the world will come to an end the night before I have a big morning meeting at work.

But damn it, that alarm and snooze button—they’re going to be the death of me yet.

The alarm sounds as though the manufacturers tore it out of a car, it’s so obnoxious; no one will definitely ever carjack the thing or drive off with it, that’s for sure. Seriously, it’s like the touchy fire alarm that sets your teeth to ringing and makes you get your stepladder so you can climb it and rip the batteries out from the fire alarm’s belly.

Despite all that, I still manage to hit the snooze button and snuggle deeper into the covers, so it’s obvious the snooze button is the worse enemy. Hell, the snooze button is EVIL. Ever since I’ve had to live with the snooze button, I have never gotten out of the house on time.

And I can’t blame this on the time change because I was up before dawn on the weekend, when I still had my Baby Ben. Never mind that I didn’t even set the alarm on those days. I was up on time!

My only consolation is that it doesn’t wake me up with Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe” every single morning, but there are days when I’d actually prefer that.

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