Wake-Up Call

     On a good day, on the road, when the alarm goes off I just get up.  My cell phone makes a gentle little harp-like sound.  It's as if my own little angel is gently nudging me out of sleep and into another lovely day.

On a bad day it goes more like this...



          I'm in a deep sleep.

          I'm dreaming.  

          I'm in a cafe and my pie has just arrived.  I lift my fork to poke at the flaky, buttery, layers of the crust.  I use the side of my fork to cut a perfect triangle from the tip of the slice.  There are cherries.  There's a syrupy thick red sauce.  Some of that perfect crust is in the bite.  I raise the fork to my mouth, anticipating the tart cherries.

          That's when I notice the alarm going off.  Is the smoke alarm in the kitchen going off?  It's bothering me.  I ask the waitress in the pink dress with the white apron to get them to shut it off.  The alarm drones on.  It gets louder and louder and I can't eat my pie.  It seems closer and closer.  Is the fire department coming to put out the diner's kitchen?

          I slowly begin to realize the sound is not a fire engine coming to put out the fire but an alarm clock.

          Who am I?  I open my eyes and peer through the darkness.  I turn to the only light in the room.  A blue LED read-out says.  3:45 a.m.

          Whoever I am, I'm sure I'm not the sort of person who would choose to wake up at 3:45 in the morning.

          It keeps going, and even though I still feel it has nothing to do with me, I decide no one else is going to come turn it off.

          But then something deep inside me says this can't be meant for me.  I feel like I just went to sleep.

          I drift back to dreamland between the mind-injuring squeals of the clock and manage to work the horrible noise into another dream...

          But my brain keeps thinking that the human-sized Easter Bunny with the lime green vest shouldn't be buzzing.

          It must be something else.

          I wonder where I am.  I look around and start to make out unfamiliar forms in the darkness.

           I'm pretty sure it's a hotel room....somewhere.

          I finally admit to myself that there truly is an alarm clock going off.  I  decide to take   ownership of the situation and turn it off.

          I briefly ponder what a wrong-headed world it must be to make people wake up to loud jarring noises at ungodly hours.

          I roll over and start trying to figure out how to turn the loathsome noise off.  I hit every button, but that only changes the noise from loud buzzing to ear splitting rap music.

          I lurch around in the dark looking for the switch on the beside lamp.  (Hotel lamps are notorious for tricky, hidden, clever, switches.  They tend to require a GPS to locate them.)

         I curse forcefully.

         I congratulate myself for being alert enough to remember a choice swear word.

         I locate the switch.  I turn the lamp on.  I celebrate a moment of triumph!

         Then I focus on beating the alarm clock into submission.

         When it eventually stops blaring, I fall back on the bed in exhaustion, close my eyes, and begin making deals with God to let me go back to sleep.

         I start to drift off and find myself on a deserted island in a hammock...ah...nice...

The breeze is blowing, the waves are flirting with the shoreline, the...

          What's that sound?

         The cabana boy shouldn't whistle so loud.  It's aggravating.  Just bring me my Mai Tai, Cabana Boy!

           But he keeps whistling.

          He sounds like...like a...What?

          Like a telephone ringing.  I realize a telephone is ringing.  I attempt to retrieve info on how to answer a telephone.

          Nothing.

          Finally I fumble around with the receiver on the phone by the bed and put the phone to my ear.

          Nothing.

          I look at the back of the phone and realize it's not plugged in at the wall.  The last occupant of this room must have ripped it out.

         I grope around, following the noise to another phone on the desk across the room.  But first I stub my toe on one of the legs of the bed.  I swear a little more, then lunge at the phone.

         I stare into space, for what seems like an hour, listening to an unnaturally cheerful voice tell me about the weather today in Buffalo.  ("Surprise!!! It sucks.", she doesn't say...but that's pretty much how it sounds to my irritable/half-awake ears.)

          I drift off into a fantasy where work is unnecessary, as I am an heiress.

          Just as I am stepping off of my yacht, admiring the blue blue Mediterranean...in a really cute outfit with this blazer I've been looking for forever that cinches in at the waist just right and...

          Harps.

          I hear harps playing.

          Have I died?

          I realize my cell phone alarm is going off.

          I fantasize about how there are, surely, no alarm clocks in heaven.

Eventually, I return to my body and realize the wake-up call recording has started over from the beginning and my cell phone alarm is going off.

       
          I dig for the cell phone.

          I find it behind the bed...where the only available plug in the room lives.   The bed is attached to the wall and there's barely room for my charger to fit between the wall and the bed frame 
I pull the phone up by it's cord.

          I turn the phone off with a practiced move (no altered state ever makes me forget how my phone operates.)

          Phew!

          I ponder what an exhausting day it's been already.  I force myself up and start coffee brewing and the bathtub filling.

          Ahhh...

          I sit in the bathtub writing about how hard it is to get all the alarm clocks off in the room.
       
          It seems I've been doing this for about two minutes.  I casually glance up at the time.

         "Ayyyyeeeee!!!!!"

          It's fifteen minutes to pick up.

         I take just another 30 seconds to fantasize about receiving a call telling me the weather is too bad to take off.

          Then I realize they don't cancel flights in Buffalo for crappy weather because it's always crappy weather in Buffalo.

          I can hear other crew members leaving their rooms, their bags rolling down the hallway...

*(*&@%!!

          Finally, I go into warp speed throwing myself and my bags together for pick up.