Alarm Clock

Who invented alarm clocks? When did people start using them? My father was a farmer in his youth and didn't have or need an alarm clock. He had the sun… sun was up and he was up (although he did have a fallback for a dark morning – the rooster). People managed for thousands of years without alarm clocks. Egypt built pyramids and Rome built an empire without an alarm clock anywhere. The explorers came to the New World and discovered and settled a continent without an alarm clock.

We have alarm clocks by our beds. We have alarm clocks in our cell phones and maybe in our watches. Some televisions can be programmed to become alarm clocks. Computers can function as alarm clocks. How many alarm clocks does one person need? Have most of us lost some gene or talent that allowed humans to function without an alarm clock?

No one knows who invented the first mechanical alarm clock, but this vile deed was done about 600 years ago in Germany. I'm sure his intentions were good, but we all know what road to where is paved with good intentions. Alarm clocks continued to be produced but were far from universally used by average people until 1931, a year that lives in infamy forever. In 1931, the Chime Alarm was produced by Westclox. This had an alarm that started soft but got louder and louder until it was impossible to ignore. By then, not only was the owner of the clock up, but the neighbors on both sides as well.

The snooze alarm came alone in 1956. This worked pretty well for the person who had trouble getting up, because you kept getting another chance to get out of bed until it was almost guaranteed you'd be late to work. It worked less well for anyone else in the house that didn't need to get up. After the fourth or fifth alarm, you might as well admit defeat and start your day.

It's hard to start your day with an optimistic, cheerful attitude when it began with a machine telling you what to do. The sun is too big to argue with and roosters can always become chicken soup. Take it from someone who's been there – chicken soup is wonderful to contemplate when a rooster lets loose and won't shut up. Even if you don't make soup, that fact that you CAN makes it more bearable. A little.

A clock, on the other hand, is a mechanical device that doesn't know or care who you are or how you feel about getting up. If you give in to temptation and throw, stomp or otherwise mutilate it, all you've accomplished is an unscheduled stop to buy a replacement. All those of us without the 'get-up-without-help' gene have no choice though. We're doomed to spend our lives as servants of the alarm clock.