Thursday, 26 February 2004 | Dragons

You would have to see my apartment to know just how hard it is to retrieve my alarm clock when two people are sleeping in my bed. They'd been asleep for an hour or so when I discovered I'd forgotten to take it with me. Initially, instead of attempting a rescue, I'd decided to depend on my trusty but archaic cell phone to play the part, but I couldn't figure out how to set the alarm, or even whether it has an alarm. Looking for the manual wasn't an option, nor was calling someone to request a wake-up call; I had no light to work with, and it was already after 3 a.m.

My apartment is shaped something like a mobile home, and the doorways to each room line up so that if you are standing at one end of the apartment, you can see all the way to the other end without obstruction. (It's ideal for watching scary movies, because it's entirely devoid of mystery corners.) Since the doorways are cut out of the center of each wall, the side of my bed (rather than the headboard) is forced to line up against the white plaster. (I've put a screen behind the headboard in a crap Martha Stewart attempt at adding a wall. See?)) My alarm clock sits on a homemade shelf above the bed, and at that moment, it was being guarded by two sleeping dragons.

The door to my room opened with a grunt, as the multi-layered paint on two enemy surfaces gave way. The dragons shifted. I crept through the room and carefully peeled back the screen at the head of the bed, and found myself looming over them voyeur-like. (I hoped they wouldn't suddenly see me, because they would no doubt be startled.)

I acquired the alarm itself without issue, but unplugging it was another matter, as the outlet was far from me, and the metal of the bed frame was pushed up against the plug.

I tried sneaking under the bed, gently scooting a giant suitcase and a bike frame out of the way, but discovered that was a dead end early on. I considered lifting the end of the bed in the air and placing it a few inches further away from the wall, but immediately rejected that idea as well. The dragons were snorting and moving the covers around. A leg moves, an arm bends.

I grabbed the cord and tried to yank it out of the wall, my left arm tugging at the cord inches from their faces. The digital red glow had disappeared from the face of the clock, but the metal prongs were committed to staying wedged in the socket. I couldn't put the clock down, unless I put it on a pillow right next to someone's head (or unless I returned it to the shelf [square one]), so I just stood there for a second, clock cradled in one arm, and the cord draped across the other.

Defeat. I reluctantly tapped a dragon on the shoulder and asked for help.