On vacation recently, we had to get up early the next morning. Really early. Not ideal for a vacation, I know, but we had somewhere to be. We’ve already established that getting up early for anyone in my family is a painful experience. It’s like waking the dead. At home, we use our cell phone alarms, and that seems to work out fine for all of us.

When we checked into the hotel, the sweet lady at the reception desk asked us if we wanted a wake-up call.

She said it so politely and kindly, I visualized Disney characters coming into our room and singing us awake.

“Sure,” Jon said, “That would be great.” He thought that having a hotel wake-up call, in addition to the phone alarms we planned to set, would be extra insurance. No harm in having a backup, right?
We were all exhausted, and fell into bed. It didn’t take long for each of us to settle into a deep sleep. The kind of deep sleep that comes from an international flight where you’re packed into the plane like chickens being stuffed into a truck for slaughter.

It isn’t pretty and you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck when you reach the other side of the big blue ocean.

But then the wake-up call came.

It sounded like someone was pushing a horn right into my face.

The girls were startled out of their sleep.

“What was that?” They both shrieked, thinking it was the fire alarm.

Jon got up, answered the only phone in the room that was across the room on a desk, and explained to the girls it was the phone. An actual telephone. Where was Snow White? Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother?

“How horrible,” Zoe said in a teenage induced grumpiness caused by being woken up.

After a few moments, our hearts stopped pounding and we all went back to sleep.

Until the second call.

Again, it sounded like an alarm was going off right inside our heads, but this time, Zoe got up and answered the phone.

Again, our hearts pounded and again we each fell back asleep.

Until the third call came.

Zoe got up again. What a nice girl, right?
“Just leave it off the receiver,” Jon screamed.

I pretended to be asleep during each of these phone calls. At least I didn’t have to leave my bed.

Eventually, our phone alarms went off, and we all got up. The nice calm sound we’re accustomed to. It isn’t Disney, but it’s close enough.

If you’re on vacation, and MUST get up the next morning, set your phone alarm. No need to give yourself a near heart attack first thing in the morning.

Find meaning each day,

Dara