Like many hard working people out there, I rely on an alarm clock to make sure I am awake in time to be able to prepare for the full day’s night’s work ahead of me without having to worry about coming up with shitty excuses for being late like Susanna Hoffs had to every manic Monday. On most nights when I go in to Mecca at 10 PM, the alarm is set for 8:00. That gives me just enough time to shower, make something to eat, eat that something I made, and spend a little quality time on the laptop checking on my board, blog, and how many negative points my fantasy league players have managed to rack up so far in the evening.
You shoulda never signed that big contract, Matt. You’ve been killing me the last two years…
What I do, however, doesn’t seem to be typical of many other Americans in my generation… and I don’t just mean going through the morning grind while the sun in setting. No, there is another strange ritual most seem to partake of that flat out baffles this nocturnal squirrel, and for which I have yet to hear of a logical explanation for.
When I set my alarm for 8:00, I know that if I sleep any longer I run the risk of not being able to get ready for work on time. Yet there exists a button that is nearly universal on alarm clocks that I wouldn’t touch with a 39.5 foot pole, but which gets pounded relentlessly and repeatedly by sleep deprived zombies all across the country… all in the name of trying to squeeze nine more minutes of sack time.
NOOOOOOOO!!! Don’t push it!!!
Yes, the evil snooze button. Seriously folks…. what the fuck?
Being woken up every nine minutes is gonna really do you a whole lot of good, huh?
Who doesn’t like to be able to roll back over and go to sleep when they’re still tired? But why would you want to be violently jolted from Michael Stipe sleep just to get the pleasure of being able to drift back off….. only to get bitchslapped once again by your alarm clock about the time you manage to re-enter the nap zone?
Buzz, slap, repeat. That doesn’t seem very restful…
No wonder you need 10 gallons of coffee to stay awake through the day.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to just set the alarm for the latest possible time and actually get some uninterrupted, restoring deep sleep during those 10-30 minutes of playing tag with your alarm clock? I don’t even like hearing the alarm go off while I’m not paying attention to it once, let alone two, three, four… or however many times one might decide to get their jollies snoozing and resnoozing. If I wake up 5-10 minutes before the alarm is gonna go off (which I quite often do), I just put up the white flag right there and get my ass out of bed. If I try to go back to sleep, I can’t enjoy it anyway because I know that alarm’s gonna scream its head off any minute and it makes me too anxious to drift off.
That alarm is going to go off in 7 minutes…. can’t go back to sleep without thinking about it… must start thinking about sexy possums…. sexy possums… Oh, Buster!
The snooze button first began appearing on old style alarm clocks in the 1950’s. Westclox actually introduced a design in 1959 that had a switch which allowed you to select an extra 5 or 10 minute snooze drowse. Yes, it was called a Drowse button, which doesn’t seem as nefarious as a snooze button. After all, nobody ever said, “You drowse, you lose.”
Just drowsing.
At some point in time between the invention of glow in the dark clock hands and those cool little flipping numbers, some drowsing expert decided that the universal snooze interval should be nine minutes. Even the internet, which can answer just about any ignorant ass question you ask, can’t come up with a conclusive reason for how this came to be.
Ask a stupid question…
Regardless of why the snooze button came to be, or how its length of reprieve was decided, it has become a standard feature on almost every nightstand alarm clock sold in the last several decades, and has been embraced by at least two generations of non-morning people who have slapped it’s extra large button more often than Moe slapped the shit out of Curly, all just to try to spend an extra nine minutes in heaven that will only come crashing down in another brain-stabbing hell. It’s time to stop the insanity and embrace a more restful and continuous sleep right up until the loud and bitter end. Let’s lay off the snooze buttons everyone!
This is what happens when you linger around in bed too long…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I call the snooze button the “HELL NO” button. It’s the last way a working slob has to fight the establishment.
Never did me much good ’cause I woke up 5 minutes before the alarm went off. I hate alarm clocks so waking myself up was less traumatic. I still wake up too early. Too many years of being a good soldier. I would so like to sleep in. Like every day for the rest of my life. Then I could walk on the sun at night like the other kids.
Solar astronauts can’t waste training time lingering around in bed!
You are spot on. I hate that incessant buzzing so much that I don’t even use an alarm clock.
It’s awful… and the radio is no better. I don’t want any noise while I sleep but the hum of my box fan…
I like my snooze button. I have to wake up by degrees, like coming up to the surface through several layers of consciousness. Or you could also say it takes about ten tries to get my lazy ass out of bed….
LOL! I wonder what the record is for consecutive snooze buttons? Maybe you should contact Guinness! 🙂
the snooze button is a special kind of torture I think…
Sleep masochists…. well, to each their own!
Now that I’m, ahem, older than I used to be, I get up so much earlier than I need to that the alarm clock, nonetheless the snooze button, is a non-issue in my life.
My damn dog gets me up at 7 to let her out to pee and I’m awake already. Cripes! Never thought that would happen when I was young and slept like a rock.
I do digress.
I see your point about sleeping as soundly as you can without the illusion of grabbing that extra 10 minutes. I’m with you on “you snooze you lose,” ESN.
Dogs are the perfect alarm clock since they don’t come with a snooze button…
Yes, I never, ever, kick the dog.
Interesting post 🙂
HaHaHa!! It’s winter down here, perfect sun walking weather. I am the alarm clock in this house and I am not always popular for some reason. 😀
You are so right! We’d have to choose an astronaut from the Southern Hemisphere to walk on the sun at this time of the year!
HaHa!! You are hilarious! 😀
My husband uses the snooze button and I think, like you, that it makes no sense. He tells me he doesn’t like to jump out of bed at the last minute, that it “eases” him into being awake. I don’t buy it. He falls right back asleep and then is jolted awake 9 minutes later. I don’t get it. When I worked I set my alarm for the last second of interrupted sleep I could get and still get to work on time. Glad, I’m not alone in my lack of understanding the use of a snooze alarm..
That seems to be the universal justification for using snooze, but for the life of me I don’t get how getting harshly jolted by the alarm every 9 minutes is very “easing” at all.
Snorts. Oh that is too funny. Mommy hasn’t set an alarm clock in the almost three years that I’ve come to live with her. Why do you ask? Snorts – why wake to soft music and the soft humming of the alarm clock when you have a pig on duty? There is *nothing* like having me wake you up promptly at 6:30AM for my breakfast. XOXO – Bacon
You have no snooze button to perhaps delay breakfast until 6:39? 😉
Oh no. 6:30am. You can count on it. My pot belly wakes me up therefore I wake mom up. Snorts. XOXO – Bacon
Stomachs are right up there with bladders for the most effective alarm clocks!
BTW, I saw those Beggin Strips Poppers contraptions while at work last night. You are right, they are so wrong!
Yes they are and YES! Another voice of reasoning – those poppers are evil. I’d like to pop something off of those marketing peeps – that’s for sure! Snorts. XOXO – Bacon
I don’t need an alarm anymore, but back when I did, the snooze button and I were amigos.
Don’t be hatin’. 😉
I’m a hatin’ evil squirrel! The squirrel who hits snooze doesn’t get the nut!
Guilty!
You are hereby sentenced to 9 extra minutes in prison… unless the parole board decides you should spend an additional nine minutes. 🙂
I agree that the snooze is evil, but then again, I’m often waking up around the time I have to get up anyway. Unfortunately, my wife is a constant snooze slammer. It’s horrible on the days when I actually am tired and would like to sleep later.
Secondhand snooze is just plain wrong…
When I was younger I used the snooze button all the time. Sometimes I would hit it so many times it would give up and I’d just go back to sleep and stay that way until I was very late.
Sometimes even the snooze button has to snooze…
I too hate the idea of being woken just as you’re drifting off again. Unless you’re a really heavy sleeper who needs the repeated alarm to wake you, there’s just no point to that button!