Cheer up sleepy Jeanne

I awoke Monday morning to what I thought was the sound of someone shoveling the sidewalk outside my window. It was scratchy, loud, and repetitive. I eventually went over to my window to peek out and saw nothing, and no snow of course. That’s when I realized the sound was actually coming from within my apartment.

My first reaction was to quietly drop down to my knees and peek under my door to see if I could see any feet moving around. No (and has that ever worked? I think probably not). Next, I considered calling Roommate to see if it’d be smart to both come running out of our rooms at the same time screaming bloody murder to ward off the perp in the next room. She doesn’t work Mondays so I decided this was cruel (plus my room is closer so I would have for sure been killed first). Next, I thought about running down the fire escape that’s connected to my room but then Roommate would have been trapped alone in the soon-to-be-crime scene.

Swift action was necessary. The noise was getting louder. I grabbed my only weapon, a Gap travel umbrella, and whipped my door open as menacingly as I could. I had the umbrella raised over my head with my arm not fully flexed so I could spring into action if and when I had to.

The noise was coming from the corner. I approached. So far, I could not see one single sign of a break-in.

Which is when I spotted it. Roommate’s alarm clock, lit up, going off, set to ‘Sounds of the Ocean’. Growing increasingly louder as it was ignored.

I was relieved, albeit a little sad that I wasn’t going to get a Medal of Honor from the Minneapolis PD for my heroism. I was annoyed that the makers of this alarm clock had approved a sound application that sounded nothing like an ocean. "Snow shoveling on uneven pavement", "Oldest man on Earth snores", and even "Dump truck unloads piles of gravel incrementally" would all have been more appropriate names.

Mostly, I was glad that I could go back to bed. Which I did.



** If you’re wondering why I assumed a killer would be making a lot of noise to attract my attention rather than busting into my unlocked room while I slept, then you obviously don’t watch enough Law and Order: SVU. And you obviously didn’t as a child hear the urban legend about the babysitter being lured into the basement by a murderer repeatedly tapping against a pipe . And you obviously didn’t read the post that explains how growing up in suburbia spurred decades of irrational fears. **