How Alarming

A couple weeks ago, the crease on the inner screen of my Galaxy Z Fold 3 cracked.

Yes, the outer screen was still usable, but the inner screen was toast. And when you buy a foldable phone, you get used to doing certain things with the bigger screen, as the outer screen is slimmer, so less useful for those particular tasks. Also, reading email on a larger screen is really nice when you have perpetually tired eyes.

Anyways, I have both an extended warranty and insurance on that phone, so getting it fixed wasn’t a question, it was just a matter of filing a claim and following directions. Which required me to send my favorite piece of hardware all the way to Texas.

As you might imagine, this created somewhat of a dilemma, as I rely on my phone not for phone calls (I almost never use it for that), but for a plethora of other daily activities, not the least of which is…waking up in the morning. So my first panicky thought when I found out I had to send off my fold wasn’t how I was going to post my daily comic book to Instagram or play Pokémon, but rather how I was going to get up for work.

I normally keep my cell on the bathroom counter overnight, and in the morning, I have a very nice alarm app that plays music that I’ve chosen for that day at a very high volume until I get out of bed, go across the hall and turn it off. Generally a rock or metal song that I feel suits the day…like Rob Zombie’s “Living Dead Girl” or “State of my Head” by Shinedown. This is the most tolerated option for all of us, as it doesn’t really upset the humans or non-humans in the house. I did use a siren alarm for awhile, and worried that neither the dogs or us were going to actually survive the panic that induced, but this is loud enough to get me on my feet and moving most of the time (I do have a backup vibrating alarm on my watch for the days I need an extra shove).

Understand, I have several “antiquated” options for alarms at my house, but they all drive my husband nuts, because I don’t respond to them as well (he merely relies on me to get up first, and then wake him half an hour later). Two of them are very loud, very shrill, very annoying wind-up alarm clocks with the big bells that pretty much work by giving you a heart attack from a dead sleep. They’re effective, but also annoying to all human and animal life in the general vicinity.

The second option is the clock radio by my bed that I’ve had since…well, I don’t actually remember. Sometime in the 90’s, I’m guessing. It still works, tells time, gets the FM stations, and has both beeping and radio alarms available. The problem is, it’s right on my nightstand, and the whole reason I stopped using the alarm feature was because it’s too easy to turn off, and my husband finds it *too* loud and annoying, especially if I hit “snooze” instead of “off”.

Hitting “snooze” is why I don’t use an alarm of any sort in my bedroom. I won’t just snooze it a couple times and then get up. I’ll snooze it indefinitely, go back to sleep and sleep right through the morning. Mornings are not something I “do” well.

So, ultra-loud bells or a clock radio too easy to snooze were my only real options. Yes, I could turn the sound on for my watch, but there’s that whole snoozing issue again, plus the louder sound for my husband. And yes, I could move the clock radio into the bathroom, but then that ruins my morning routine of setting it to play the radio for 15 minutes while I do my makeup, and if it shuts off before I’m done, I know I have to get a move on.

Pretty much everything in my morning routine is crafted to keep me moving toward the door so I can be at work…well, as close to on-time as possible.

Then I remembered that a friend of mine had an older phone she kept on hand as a spare, and when I asked if I could borrow it while mine’s in the shop, she was happy to help. Whew!

I made a full backup of my phone to my PC before I sent it off, and then just copied the basics I needed to the loaner phone…including AMdroid, which is my favorite alarm app, and the music files I needed for my alarms. Workdays saved!

Naturally, this got me thinking that I really should keep an older phone on hand for times like these. It’s just so nice to get that discount for trading the old ones in when I upgrade, though – generally a pretty sizable discount, especially on these foldable phones.

But…since I’m getting the inner screen replaced on this one, it should be good for quite awhile longer now, I’d think. So maybe I can wait for the price to drop naturally on the new one the next time I’m ready to upgrade. We’ll see.

In any case, all this made me wonder – how do you get up in the morning? Do you use your phone as an alarm, or something else? Are you an easy riser, or more of a “this sucks…I’m going back to bed” person like me?

Bonus question: What percentage of your dreams would give stories like “Sharknado” a run for their money at the box office?

(Mine is probably about fifty percent, I’d say…I just wish I could remember them for longer than a few minutes after I wake up!)

For anyone curious, my Fold Z is our for delivery today, as this posts. As much as I appreciated the loaner, I’m very much looking forward to having that back!

Jamie DeBree

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler