Cause for Alarm

Tom gets attached to relics from his past and is loathe to give them up—things like a flannel shirt he bought back in 1984 (the year I graduated from high school.)  He still wears it when he does the yard. I tried to throw it out once, but he pulled the paper thin, fraying item from the laundry room trash and insisted that it still “has a lot of wear in it.” Then there’s a tie he bought in Austria in 1986. It’s way too narrow, and looks its age, but he still wears it, on occasion, to church. One time, the tie elicited an excited response from one of our German-speaking fellow church members who recognized the symbol on the tie, and ever since, Tom has said that he can’t throw it out because “you never know when it might come in handy as a conversation starter.”

Well, his attachment to his 80’s era alarm clock came up today in the car on the way home from church when Will remembered that Tom had never started using the new one we bought him for Christmas last year.  I found a fancy clock that can play a CD, and has various pleasant sounds that will awaken you gently from sleep. When buying it, I had visions of waking up to a new day with some light baroque, classical guitar or some sort of nature sounds that would ease us into the day rather than the annoying bleep of his aged alarm. I was unprepared for the response we got.

I saw a small smile begin to play around his lips as we drove along. “You’re tired of the old alarm, are you?” Will and I agreed it was time to use the new present we’d given him and heartily encouraged him to try it out Monday.  “You realize what this means don’t you,” he asked. “You realize what you’ll be waking up to?”

All of a sudden it dawned on me what we had done. Gulp. There was a gleam in Tom’s eye now that was undeniable as the full panoply of musical possibilities began occurring to him.

“This is great. We could make a music list for every week. You can choose a CD to wake up to, and then I will. We’ll start with Maynard Ferguson’s Give it One on Monday. (He’ll have to peel me off the ceiling if he plays that one.) Tuesday, you can have, what, Abba or something.” (He said “Abba or something,” with a slightly derisive note in his voice.) “Wednesday, we’ll wake to Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition–you know the opening lines with the trumpet–or the Great Gate of Kiev–then you can have something you want on Thursday. I’m thinking Friday could be Pines of Rome–the loud part. That would blow us out of bed in a hurry, or maybe some Mahler or Bruckner movement with the Chicago Symphony brass at full tilt. This is going to be great!”

The car was suddenly very quiet.

“Uh, Tom, maybe that old alarm clock isn’t such a bad idea after all,” I said meekly. “After all, there’s something to be said for continuity.”

It was too late. I have the distinct feeling that mornings will never be the same around here. Tom’s enormous CD collection will make it’s way up here, one CD at a time. The house already shakes when he gets a Wagner or Mahler CD going on the Bose sound system in his basement lair. I will have nobody but myself to thank when those same sounds herald the beginning of a new day just a few feet from my ear. Tom’s last comment on the matter, however, gives me a glimmer of hope.

“The only problem is,” he frowned, “I’m going to want to sit there and listen to the whole movement, and the entire thing could be counter productive if it makes me late…”