Alarm clock more than a match for me

Like many full-blooded Americans, I have a tempestuous relationship with my alarm clock.

It can be a real battle of wits, and sometimes I find myself wondering if I'm not outgunned.

It's possible all this animosity is in my own little head, but I doubt it. I've caught some sly looks coming from the inanimate object when it thinks I'm not looking.

It's never not worked on its own accord — it's cantankerous, not cruel. I have a back-up timer just in case there's a power outage, to boot. That's rescued me a couple times.

Sometimes the alarm clock lets me sleep right to its alarm in the morning, and sometimes it does something — I still haven't discovered exactly what — to wake me up 15 minutes or so before my scheduled get-up.

Sometimes, I grumble and figure I might as well get up, it's hardly worth trying to get the extra time.

More often than not, I groan and roll back over, figuring I've earned the right to those last few moments.

"World, you'll have to get along a couple more minutes without Matthew," I think to myself as I try to find a new spot on my pillow which isn't all drooly.

The world usually replies, "Well, fine then, Matthew. Who needs you, anyway?"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

I'm just about drifted off again when the alarm goes off, and it's time to take on said world.

I'm not a morning person by my very nature, ever since my kindergarten days.

If given my druthers, I think I'd stay up until 2 a.m., then sleep until waking naturally at 11 a.m.

But after more than 20 years, I'm learning to accept it and move on from there, by greeting each morning at home with an "Oh my! Again?!?!!" and then coming into work with an enthusiasm designed to match the level of how much I don't want to be up, period.

So if I'm really, really cheerful, I probably really, really want to go back to sleep.

It's a good method, I think. It passes along cheeriness to people who might need it, and it doesn't offend those insane people who are up at the crack of dawn by choice.

I've found some of my greatest equalizing moments have come from quiet confessions to people.

"I really don't want to be here right now."

And then they reply, "I know exactly what you mean," with their own wistful glances towards a pillow back home.

We continue our struggle through the next few hours on our own, of course. But it helps to know we're not alone.

And then there are the rare occasions my clock gives me a great gift, and I awaken whole hours before it's time to start stumbling around.

"Thanks, alarm clock," I say drowsily as I drift back off to sleep.

"No problem," it says quietly, so as not to disturb my slumber.

I like those days, when we are at peace.