"Yes I love technology, but not as much as you, you see. But I still love technology, always and forever.."-Kip, Napoleon Dynamite

Take a look at this picture, see anything weird? Look closely....Yes it's 3:30, right, right. What about the cord, is it plugged in? That would be a negative. So how is it telling time? In order to explain, I must go back...

Technology and I have been at an impasse for quite some time. It won't make itself any easier to understand and I lack the left brain capabilities that would help me to know how it works. Add to that my disdain for reading instructions and one could say I had a problem.

A few months back our alarm clock was on the fritz. It wasn't a huge surprise being as the one we had up till that point was mine from college which had actually belonged to my roommate Laura... but anyways, not important to the story...so it was time for a grown up alarm clock. I found this one and it seemed to fit the bill. Not only would it tell time and wake you up but it was also a sound machine and I could dock my Ipod to it as well. True to form, when I got it home, I tossed the very thick booklet of instructions and plugged it in; how hard could an alarm clock be? Turns out...very hard. My first few attempts to set the alarm ended up in us being jolted awake by the sound machine feature, thinking that we were suddenly being attacked by huge waves and angry seagulls.

A few other attemps to set the clock ended up in a hit or miss game.Some mornings it would go off, others it wouldn't. The worst part is that there's no clear button to indicate how you shut it off so my solution (being the tech savvy person that I am) was to turn it down.

Which brings us to current. So I had been using the Ipod feature, hence the volume was back up again, and the next morning the alarm starts going off at 5:30 just as loud as can be. Several attempts to hit the correct sequence of buttons did not silence it. And apparently I have it on some sort of ascending volume feature because it's getting louder and louder. Being awoken abruptly from sleep is not a shining moment for either of us and so the horrible noise is now accompanied by:

"Turn it off!"

"I'm trying it won't!"

"Push all the buttons!"

"What do you think I'm doing over here?"

"Turn the volume down!"

"I can't see the dial!"

"Just unplug it before I'm all the way awake!"

When you do a dramatic gesture in anger you do so thinking there will be this big payoff. Rhett ripping the plug from the wall, with the force that very well could have taken off some dry wall with it was supposed to feel very vindicating. We'd show that clock who was boss! Yeah, it was boss, because it was STILL going off. Now fully awake we start handling it like it's a bomb that won't deactivate. Either enough time had elapsed or we've inadvertently hit the right button and it finally stops. The whole day I pass by it thinking I have either bought the smartest alarm clock in the world or the most diabolical. I had almost decided to take it back to the store because this was clearly too much clock for just two people . And to be totally honest, it scared me a little. Struck by sudden inspiration I thought finally to turn the clock upside down and sure enough found that it was also... battery operated. Two things I have learned from this. I need to remember that technology is still way smarter than me and when I buy it, less is definitley more.