My Soviet Alarm Clock

My trusty college alarm clock stopped keeping time recently.  I'd sync it with Joey's clock on Saturday and the crazy thing would creatively speed up a few seconds every day, and by the end of the week it would be a minute or so ahead of Joey's.  I decided it was time for drastic action.

"Can I set this on fire?"  I asked Joey, as I came out into the living room holding my alarm clock.

"No.  Remember what happened last time you set and electronic device on fire?"  Joey asked me.

(It was my old cell phone and nothing really bad happened...except after it was all melted it looked disgusting and creepy, so I made Joey throw it away.)

"Can I throw it off the balcony and smash it into a million pieces on the sidewalk?"  I tried again.

Joey appeared to think about this for a minute before finally saying, "Sure, you can do that."

I went out onto the balcony and looked over the edge.  I considered throwing my alarm clock off but, since we're only the 2nd story I didn't think it would be worth it.  Especially considering that some unsuspecting person might get clocked.  (I'M SO WITTY!!) 

In the end I would up putting it in the trash can, but not before leaving it on the table for a day to see if Joey would reconsider letting me set it on fire, which he never did. 

The next day being shopping day, I added "alarm clock" to the list.  I'd purchased my college alarm clock for $4.99 back in the day, and I was hoping to find something in a similar price range.  (All I wanted it to do was tell the time and beep obnoxiously to get me to wake up.)  Joey was rather dismayed that I was replacing my alarm clock in the first place, but when I showed him that it was no longer keeping time, he acquiesced.

My college alarm clock was rather sleek and rather a la The Jetsons.  It was all rounded and trendy looking.  I had high hopes of finding something equally amazing since it was about seven years ago.

Target either has bad alarm clocks, or my hopes of finding a sweet, cheap alarm clock were very off base.  Although they did have one for $4.99.  And it looks like this.

Obviously whoever took that picture did something to it, because it does not really look like that in real life.  It looks more like something you'd find on the Red October in The Hunt For Red October, minus the Cyrillic writing of course.  It's unnecessarily big and boxy.

"This alarm clock kind of gives me the creepies."  I said to Joey after I got it all plugged in and set up.

"Yeah...it's not very awesome."  He agreed with me.

"It looks like it houses some Communist Russian bomb or listening device..." I trailed off.  I was kind of working myself up.

"It's not, though."  Joey assured.

So the alarm clock still gives me the willies.  And before you laugh and point the finger, YOU try waking up to a Communist alarm clock every morning and see if that doesn't get you right out of bed all creeped out.

Even if my alarm clock has some sort of tracking/listening/spying device in it (I haven't yet checked to see where it's made, but if it's from Russia I'm going to set it on fire no matter what Joey says) the snooze button still works.  I know because I use it often lately.

Although who knows, it may be transferring my lazy-data on to some submarine off the coast of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico.  I should really stop hitting snooze; just in case. 

You can never be too careful...