Product Improvement for the Day-Off Impaired

Dear Alarm Clock Manufacturer,

I have an idea that might make your company the sales leader in the alarm clock manufacturing field. Or at least I think it would - this consumer, at least would be seriously interested in such a thing. And, I do think other manufacturers would see the need for this and give you competition once your (actually MY) innovative idea hit the market.

We need an alarm clock that caters to the Day-Off Impaired.

I came to this thought after a day in the oral surgeons office where I was given a lovely cocktail of various drugs that not only permitted the dentist to yank offending articles out of my mouth, but also to induce such chemicals into my cellular system that most of the rest of the day was spent in what can best be described as hangover sleep.

Unfortunately, this resulted in my being awake most of the night. And, once again awake early this morning.

So, I had the opportunity to do some up close and personal observation of the inner workings of the alarm clock from the aspect of listening to it ring at my usual getting up hour of 3 a.m.

Now, I generally always hear the thing ringing at that time. However, I listen to it ring at that time from the SLEEPING side of 3 a.m., not the wide awake aspect of said time.

But, awake I was, working away in my office when I heard the dulcet tones of Stairway to Heaven blasting out of the speakers. I let it go, since I was busy, but finally decided the spouse might not be as appreciative of Led Zeppelin at that hour as I was.

Okay, fine. So, I shut down the computer and went to bed, shutting off the music and trying to get some sleep. Tossing and turning for the rest of the night, getting a nap in every so often, I was also awake when his alarm went off at 5:45. I sleep on the alarm side, so I was able to make my next astute observation from the viewpoint of someone who normally is not in the bed at that time because I'm already at work.

Hitting the snooze bar for someone else is not nearly as pleasurable as hitting it for yourself when you know it's your day off. And, he doesn't have the music alarm, he has the cascading tone which starts of softly and eventually blares if unattended.

So, since I was awake anyway, I punched the snooze bar for him several times; this necessitated finding the damn button in the first place in the myriad of spaces and buttons that move when touched. Now, that in itself is not a bad thing, and is certainly not my fabulous idea.

Quit blithering and tell us your idea! Heck no! it's my blog and I am easily amused at this hour!

Now, while hitting the snooze bar is, as I said, not a bad thing, it IS annoying to have to roll over and look at the clock to see if the alarm light is still blinking that it's still operating and you haven't screwed up and hit the off button by accident. And, since I was the one hitting it, each time I was asked to open an eye and take a look. I wasn't asleep anyway, but that's not the point. I was trying to sleep, after all, and that generally works best with eyes shut.

Again, that's not a problem, or my idea, but it did lead me to some interesting philosophical discussion with myself. I must be desperate for intelligent conversation when I'm reduced to having a philosophical discussion about alarm clocks with myself. I need to get out more.

Okay already. So here's my idea. You need one more item on your alarm clock. You don't need to have yet another plug in for an iPod, or whatever musical option is the latest thing. You need to bring the function of the alarm clock back to its purpose, which is to wake people up.

What is needed is this: an EASY method for shutting off the normal wake-up calls for those of us who must earn a living. Occasionally, we have days off, and if married, we normally don't have that second alarm for days off. Nor do we want to have his and hers alarm clocks on each side of the bed (or hers and hers, or his and his - you get the idea).

Make us ONE alarm clock with two alarms like they are now, but put an extra button on the thing; even two - one for each spouse. One, though, would actually be enough if you did it right.

You see, you have already done a good job with what you have, but face it; it's a pain in the arse to have to change, or even shut off the alarm clock in most models. You make the buttons entirely too small for men with big fingers, or clumsy for those of us who wake up with arthritis and slow moving joints till the heat of the shower warms them up.

So, it becomes easier to just sleep with the work day alarms in place, shutting them off as needed and rolling over and going back to sleep on a day off. Or, you wake up every nine minutes to hit the snooze bar and try to decide if you want to keep your usual schedule. Usually the answer to that is a resounding NO! I want to sleep in! Till seven! (Remember, I get up at 3 a.m. on work days.) And, after I finally rouse myself to actually shut the alarm clear off, I find that I sleep in far past my usual desired day off wake up time because I've spent extra time waking up and hitting the snooze bar instead of getting my REM sleep.

Make us an override button for days off. Make it so we don't have to mess around with our work alarms, but instead we can just hit a button and set an extra alarm which gives us a wake up call at the time we'd like to get up on a day off. Make that alarm override, without changing our work day alarms...override is the key word here! Make it easy - heck, you could even make it a plug in which would fit into the headphone jack. Once plugged in, your normal alarms would not ring, but instead the override alarm would kick in. You could even make it so the simple action of plugging in the alarm attachment would disengage the work day alarms if you didn't want an alarm at all. You could make it padded, and baseball sized, so it would be easy to throw against the wall, too, if you tend to throw things like that in sheer annoyance. Even work with local contractors for wall repair for people who did actually throw the attachment! If they weren't interested, you could sponsor community education classes to instruct people on how to repair and texturize drywall. A whole new cottage industry might be born, for only a few folks taking such a class would be "good" at it, and would become popular people to call for repairs.

See? This idea is already expanding. Now it's up to you to make it happen! If you need any clarification on my ideas, I'll gladly discuss them with your designers. And, you can count on me to give you a fair and honest assessment of the designs you want to try. I'm sure the talented folks in your engineering department will be able to sleep on this idea and bring peace and harmony to those of us who suffer with Day-Off Impairment.

Thank you for you time.

Sincerely,

Wide-awake in the Midwest