Haunted Alarm Clock

"You went crazy on your alarm clock this morning," J informed me at approximately 9 am.

"I did?" I asked, swallowing to wet my throat. "Well, it drives me insane," I grumbled in a scratchy morning voice. And then with a perfectly straight, half-woken face, I sat up slightly.

"I think it's haunted," I finally explained.

"What?" J asked, and then, after a moment of silence, I detected minor gasps and felt the floor shake just a little. Crusty and still bleary-eyed, I couldn't make out his body position, standing at the food of the bed, but I'm pretty sure he bent over at the waist, clutched his heart and burst into laughter. Slightly confused, I propped a second pillow behind my head. I would have propped a third or fourth pillow--as that would have given me a better view--but we compromised on pillows when he moved into the condo.

"Why are you laughing? It is haunted--I swear. No matter what I do, that stupid alarm clock will not stop alarming me that it is 6:20 am."

"Did you unplug it?"

"Of course. But my mom got me one of those alarm clocks with insane back up capability in case the electric goes out. When my second roommate got married and I finally ran out of people to live with, I got nervous that I would literally sleep for a whole day. So she was being super nice and got me that one."

To this, J curled in his lips, aiming to prevent a second round of laughter.

"I seriously don't even think it has batteries in it," I told him, then I re-sealed my eyes and crawled deep inside my comforter. "It is haunted," I said again, decidedly, mumbling through down feathers and a warm, white sheet.

"I really don't think it is haunted."

Just as he said this, he crossed the room and picked up the alarm clock I have been cursing every single morning for the last five years. It always rings at the worst moment it could ring--weekend mornings, snoozed mornings, mornings when I'm actually up early and struggling to pour coffee grinds. Reliable though it is, the noise is horrendous; the noise confirms that nighttime is over.

"Yes it is," I asserted, even stronger.. "It is most certainly haunted."

As soon as I made my point, I mumbled "damn alarm," to myself the same way I mumble it morning after morning at 6:20 am. This mumble always precedes a blind swat at random silhouettes--J's alarm clock, my cell phone, Vicks Vaporub, chapstick. The alarm clock I need to hit is always the last one my fingers locate.

"No, other one...no, over there, not your phone, the one in the back..."

J is a very patient man.

I curl into the warm pillow tucked inside my arms, but I can hear J above me, prying open the battery lid, a lid that hasn't been open since the day I got the device.

"Babe, you have eight batteries in here," he informed me. I peeled back the sheets and looked up for proof. And what do you know? There, hovering above me, was a fully lined collection of batteries.

"I don't think it's haunted," he said and then he burst out laughing. Loud laughing. Full belly laughing. The kind that I can't even get mad about. "It's too bad," he said between gasps. "You could have made a lot of money off of a haunted alarm clock."

I really thought it was haunted. I've never once changed those batteries. And I really did seem to recall that in one particular fit of morning irritation I plucked each and every one of them out of the battery bay and tossed them directly into the trash.

Apparently I did not do this, and apparently that meant the ringing and whining the alarm clock makes morning after morning is directly linked to those stinking, long-lasting batteries.

And so we took them out. We performed an alarm clock exorcism.

With the removal of a single battery, my alarm clock lost his ghost. Tomorrow morning is going to be pretty weird. I've gotten rather used to my 6:20 swat; hopefully, I'll wake up in time for work.