The gift
All night last night my cat was jumping up onto the bookshelf next to my bed. This is no horrific deed in and of itself, however, for his own amusement, I am sure, he kept batting at my alarm clock until it would fall to the floor.I have a small battery powered alarm clock ...For several reasons ...The first of which being that I am paranoid that the power will go out and I will not get up in time for whatever event I have planned for the day. I have nightmares about being late. Sad. I also like my small alarm because it travels well. And, perhaps most importantly, I can pick it up and hit snooze, then hold it in my hand as I burrow myself under the blankets for another 9 minutes of sleep, holding it with me under the massive amounts of blankets piled high on my bed keeps me from diving my sister nuts with the repetitive snooze alarms.
so the cat keeps knocking my alarm to the floor. I hear this and retrieve it several times. Each time carefully checking the time. I was afraid that if it stayed on the floor I may not hear it go off. An entirely irrational fear considering that I awoke each time it plunked to the carpet. It was a pain finding it each time. Every time I tried to lean out of bed rubbing my hand methodically in search of the missing alarm, but each time it required me crawling out of my warm cocoon to locate it. This "amusement" grew irritating in a hurry. I rationalized that if I woke up each time it fell surely I would wake up when it sounded in the morning. At last I left it on the floor.
My cat is pawing my head. Stupid cat! I shake him off, thinking that he is being especially irritating this morning. He usually waits quite patiently for me to wake up, get dressed and then feed him.
The cat starts meowing. Shut up! I bury my head under my pillows but he doesn't stop. Argh. I glance at the clock. No clock. Oh, yeah, the floor. I get out of bed locate the battery...That's weird, why is there a random battery lying on the floor? Then reality hit hard. Battery=alarm...Frantically I find the alarm without its power source! Shoot...What time is it? I run to the kitchen. 7:45. Thank God its a jean day at school, I throw on clothes...Anything...Run to the bathroom simultaneously splashing water on my face and brushing my teeth. I left my apartment 8 minutes later. 7:53. We have a staff meeting at 7:50, and it takes me 20 minutes get to school. I console myself with the fact that the kitchen clock it at least 5 minutes fast...So I will only be about 15 minutes late.
I approached the stoplight and that is when my stomach gets this surreal, "something-is-really-wrong-with-this-situation-feeling." What was it? Something was most assuredly amiss. I drove this way everyday. I waited impatiently and uneasily for the red light to change. I had my bookbag. I was fully clothed. I had somehow managed to braid my hair, brush my teeth...Whatever it was that was the cause for my unease surely it couldn't be too horrible so as to further complicate the day. Another glance at the light...At least the sun isn't glaring in my eyes like it usually does. The past several mornings the sun has been directly behind the stoplight making it impossible to see, so impossible that I would watch the lights for the other direction and go when they turned red. But today no glare. Where was the sun? I surveyed the sky noticing, for the first time, that there was no sun in the perfectly cloudless sky. It was light out. But the sun was still under the horizon. I pushed the radio dial to display the time. 6:58. My shook my head in disbelief.
All of this because I can't read anything but a digital clock...At least not at 6:45 in the morning. I drove the rest of the way to school regretting the decision to forego make-up in my haste. *sigh* after a fright like that I arrived at school realizing that I had about 40 minutes to kill before the staff meeting, I had, after all, decided last night that I could sleep today because my classroom was ready. So while the morning had a rough start I was never so grateful for the gift of 40 minutes...Not because I needed the time but because I have nightmares about being late. Sad.
posted by Trisha @ 6:54 PM
