Apparently the lifespan of a digital clock radio is about 20 years, give or take.
I got this alarm clock in 1986, for my tenth birthday. According to my diary from that year, my Aunt Sammie got it for me. I’ve used this alarm clock ever since. I’ve lived in six different cities; in a trailer, two houses, four dorm rooms, and five apartments; and my simulated-wood-grain clock radio has consistently lived on my nightstand.
Over the past few years, the buzzer has slowly faded to a weak-sounding bleating, so I’ve been setting the alarm to radio, instead. Usually, the click of the radio turning on has been enough to waken me, as I’m almost awake by the time my alarm goes off, anyway.
However, on Sunday, I awoke 20 minutes after my alarm was supposed to have woken me. I looked at the clock. It was silent. I hit the button to turn off the alarm, and it made the tell-tale click; it had been on, but with no volume. I was willing to accept that maybe I’d hit the volume knob with my book before I went to bed. Before going to bed last night, I double-checked the volume and went to sleep, confident that my clock radio would wake me in the morning.
This morning, I awoke five minutes before I was supposed to be at work. WTF? I hit the button that either turns off the alarm or displays the time at which the alarm will sound — and it read 5:06pm. Now, I *knew* I hadn’t set my alarm for 5:06pm, and I hadn’t reset the time recently, so it couldn’t have happened by accident.
Time to get a new clock.
After a failed alarm clock hunt at Meijer over my lunch break, I went to Wal-Mart after work and got myself a new-fangled alarm clock. It is now time to plug in the new clock, and retire the old.
Sometimes I’m strangely attached to *things*.
