Wakey, Wakey

My wife Jennie and I are playing a game of chicken. You know. That old movie cliché where two cars speed towards each other and certain death and the point of the game is to see who swerves out of harm’s way first.

Only we’re not playing with cars. We’re playing with alarms. As in, “Wake Up!” alarms on our phones.

It used to be alarms were pretty simple. You had a wind-up clock that you hoped was set close to the right time because this was before our robot overlords orbiting overhead made sure that our computers, phones, tablets, and other devices were set to the correct time by the millisecond. Most of us set our alarm clocks ten minutes ahead so we’d think we were fifteen minutes late so we’d hurry up and out the door.

Everyone had the same ring. Brrriiiinnnggg. Brrriiiinnnggg.

Nowadays our alarms are just one of the gadgets that are part of our phones. And we can personalize them. It can be an annoying sound, or an annoying voice, or an annoying song.

I used to have, well, not an annoying song, just a vigorous one. It was the song written by J.J. Abrams (famous movie director) and Lin-manuel Miranda (of Hamilton fame) for the Cantina scene in the Star Wars movie “The Force Awakens.” It’s kind of fun and festive, and it’s in Hutteese, which is the language spoken by Jabba the Hutt and his ilk. (Yes, people really write songs in Star Wars languages.)

My wife Jennie complained because my song was too loud, festive, and cheerful by half. I thought the song was effective because I tended to wake up five minutes before the alarm went off so I wouldn’t bother her, but I changed itw to George Winston’s version of a gentle classic by Vince Guaraldi (famous for all those Charlie Brown soundtracks), “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” The problem is I like the song so much I tend to let it play on and on and on. And it’s not annoying enough to get me out of bed.

So it looks like I blinked first. Which is the secret to any long marriage, and ours is up to forty-eight years and counting.

After she won Jennie upped the ante – she changed her alarm to an extremely loud peal of church bells. It sounds like something out of old movies from the thirties. I’ve heard it before, somewhere. Like maybe in the Wizard of Oz or Gone with the Wind.

I’m in a sound sleep and suddenly: “Ding Dong! Ding Dong! Ding Dong! Ding Dong!” Merciless, unending, peals of bells.

And it all sounds like it’s happening two feet from my head.

It works.

For me.

I sit up like I’ve been struck by lightning, swing to my right and plant my feet on the floor, and stand up. No. Jump up. I’m looking for the alarm clock so I can turn it off. I’m also still in my dream, which this morning involved being asked to chair a small meeting of experts to study issues for the local school district but when I arrived there were more like seven hundred people in the meeting room which was actually an outdoor amphitheater so we were making the decision to reschedule when – “Ding Dong! Ding Dong!”

But I already told you that. That’s when I remembered that I wasn’t at a meeting. I was awake, a full fifteen minutes before my own gentle “Cast Your Fate To The Wind” alarm would go off.

Jennie – 1. Frank – 0.

Frank Ramirez is the Senior Pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren.