"I don't like alarms, Mr. White."

That's something else I share with Mr. Blonde, besides being an impeccably-dressed psychotic jewel thief. Don't like using them, never have, except for my sophmore year because my roommate needed the 1812 Overture to get him out of bed. Unfortunately, my current schedule demands it, since I do have a tendency to linger in bed in the morning.

But whenever I set my alarm, I always, always, wake a half hour before in anticipation. That's no biggie.

But a lot of the times (this happened last night) I will dream that the alarm woke me up. More often than not I'm preparing for the day in my mind for a good half-minute before realizing that my room doesn't always resemble an Escher painting and my cat doesn't know how to cook green beans almondine.

There's probably an allegorical statement here about the nature of the workday and its dehumanizing results, but Harlan Ellison already wrote about it.