home sweet home

I’m back from the Christmas visit with my parents. I’m always at a loss, after these visits to point out the thing that made me most crazy. There are so many things jockeying to push me over the edge.

But this year, it had to be my father’s watch.

The DH and I share the master bedroom on these visits, and it’s normally used by my father. We’ve wised up to the fact that the clock radio is set to play polka music at 7:00 am at a volume sufficient to wake and 80 year old man who is a bit deaf in one ear.

But we’d forgotten to find and disable his wristwatch. It has an hourly alarm. This wouldn’t be so bad if it were mechanical beeping. Annoying, of course, but you can learn to sleep through a couple of little beeps.

But the tinny, female voice announcing “It’s three. O’clock. AM.” “It’s four. O’clock. AM.” My husband, who is mechanically minded, was unable to turn it off. Possibly because, after sleeping for two nights in one hour shifts, he’d lost all fine motor coordination.

I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky. He also has a watch that counts out the hours by crowing like a chicken.