sleeping in

I had a strange morning-- something happened that is generally considered to be common, but which I have only experienced a few times in my life.

My alarm didn't go off. Actually, two alarms didn't go off.

One alarm clock is supposed to mimic the gradual brightening of the sunrise, and help to make waking up less painful. I don't always use that one, as the interface is particularly obscure and it runs fast. Right now it's nine minutes fast, and in another month it'll be up to ten. Even its speeding up is totally random, since it got up to quite a few minutes fast soon after I reset it, but now that it's at nine minutes fast, it seems almost set in its ways.

Given my basic understanding of this clock, it's no surprise that it didn't work-- regardless of the fact that I made sure to turn it on. And I'm sure that I turned it on, because when I went to bed last night I saw that my main clock was blank.

I've waited for this day for years. The clock was given to me by my mom, one of the times I visited her in England. She was appalled that I didn't have a travel clock, and it had been given to her uncle by my dad, apparently swag from a conference. So it had already passed through at least three hands before me, and it didn't seem to be a particularly well-made thing. But it was simple, with few features, and extremely reliable.

It was my main clock for the past nine years. Nine years, and who knows how many countries. If a dead battery doesn't seem like a big deal, that's because you assume it can be changed. This clock is so cheaply made that its watch battery is hidden deep inside, with no apparent access. This really feels like the end of an era, although maybe it's the dumbed-down-edness of my cold-addled brain.