I’ve positioned my music system next to my bed, so that in the mornings I can simply roll to my left and turn on the radio. I know, I know, there’s a way you can do it so that the radio becomes your alarm, but I can scarcely think of something more frightening than waking up to the sound of strangers talking in my bedroom. But as it turns out, this shows a paucity of imagination on my part, because Radio 1 have spent the last week thinking of new and exciting ways to wake up one of their presenters. This morning, they woke him up with a snake.
Whilst I would very much dislike to be woken up by a snake, I’ve decided to leave it off my personal list of ‘the ways I most hate to be woken up’, simply because of statistical probability. (By the same token, I have also left off: being woken up by Santa, because I barely sleep at all on Christmas Eve).
Here are the ways I most hate to be woken up:
- By my Mother, precisely 1 minute before my alarm is due to go off. ‘Darling, are you not going to be late?’
- By my Mother, on a day I’m not working. ‘Darling, are you not going to be late?’
- By my Mother, poking her head round my door to ask if I want to go to a 6.30am spinning class. (I went to a class! The first day of my stay, to be impressive! Is this Groundhog Day?)
- By my Mother, asking if I want a pair of plain black knickers that she ‘bought but doesn’t like’.
- By my Mother, asking if a plain white t-shirt is ‘yours, or your brother’s?’ (My brother is approximately a foot taller than myself. I would take my Mother to have her eyes checked, but then she might notice that I’ve been steadily ‘borrowing’ things from her house for years.)
- By my Mother, wanting to check that ‘I’m up’. (I wasn’t. I was down, sleeping. It was blissful).
- By my Mother, shouting at my silent stepfather to be ‘quiet, because Lucy’s sleeping.’
- By my Mother, ‘wondering if you wanted dinner?’ (I think it’s her ability to really focus on what matters that makes her so excellent at her job).
- By my Mother, asking if I had any plans to get married. (Apparently, she likes to ask us questions when we are ‘more vulnerable’, as she feels it will increase her chances of getting an honest answer).
- By my Mother, ‘just checking if you were asleep.’
unfashionablylost 