I had the most surreal morning I can remember. I had a bad night of sleep last night. I was in bed early, as I like to be on the nights before I get up before the crack of dawn to teach, but my husband was tossing and turning and kept waking me up. I finally grabbed my pillow, my alarm clock and a comforter and moved downstairs to the couch, where I had assorted weird dreams that I can�t remember. But at some point, I woke up � or thought I had � and checked the alarm clock, which has a button to press it to light it up. But it didn�t light. I held it close to my face to try to read it. It was blank. �Oh, no!� I thought. �The clock is broken! I�d better get up to check my watch.� I dragged myself to the bathroom to check my watch, which was lying on the counter. It was 4:59. I dragged myself back to turn off the alarm clock and crawled back under the covers and went to sleep. A few minutes later I woke up and checked the alarm clock again. Still broken � this time it had no light, but its face showed some kind of countdown, which meant nothing to me. I vaguely remembered having gotten up and finding that it was 4:59. I knew I needed to get up, but I really wanted to sleep. I forced myself awake (for real this time) and I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I looked grabbed my alarm clock. It was working perfectly, light and all. The time? 4:59. I got up and went to the bathroom and checked my watch. 4:59.

I�m still not sure how much of this was dream and how much really happened, beyond the fact that I got up at 4:59, as all clocks testified. And also that despite the lack of sleep, my record for never actually waiting for the alarm clock to ring is unsullied. And also that I�m never going to trust my alarm clock again, despite the fact that it seems to have been working fine all along.

Fortunately other alarm clocks work fine. My internal one is apparently finely tuned. And the man and woman speaking Korean, who walk past my office door every morning exactly thirty minutes before my class begins, have just breezed by. So it must be time to teach.

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