The devices in my life hate me. Several months ago, my computer took to unceremoniously expurgating my word processing documents with “fatal error” screens. Then along came the MP3 player, which has been producing ominous, faintly satanic-looking lines of gibberish that scroll from right to left across its display screen.

Now my alarm clock, o fateful device, has joined in the festivities.

Rewind to this morning: I need to be at work at 8:50 am. It’s currently 8:06 am. I know this, because that’s what my alarm clock displays as its alarm goes off. Shit! I think, sitting up in bed and turning it off. I must have slept through my cell phone alarm!  Every morning, I set two alarms: the cell phone alarm (which sounds pleasant, like a doorbell, and goes off at 7:20 am), and my real alarm (which sounds like having your brains filleted and has thus been set only as a backup alarm, at 8:06 am).

Disgruntled and confused, I fling back the covers and prepare to get ready for work in approximately twenty-five minutes. This involves making coffee, showering, dressing, preparing lunch, and feeding and watering the cats. Normally, I would take ten minutes just to paw through my closet in a futile quest to find the one attractive outfit that I’d somehow overlooked on the last seventy mornings that I’ve pawed through my closet. Today, though, I must dispense with this charade and grab the first crazy, mismatched outfit I see, meaning I’ll look like normal. I also must skip taking my cats for their daily constitution in the backyard, meaning the smaller and less intelligent of the two cats fills my morning with added tranquility by pacing around the living room and howling as though she’s being beaten with a croquet mallet.

All of this, and somehow I make it into my car with plenty of time to spare. It’s 8:30. Not only will I get to work on time, I’ll be slightly early. I decide to treat myself for this show of efficiency by stopping on the way to get coffee, half of which I suck down on the drive to work. Caffeinated, unexpectedly chipper, I marvel at how the roads seem remarkably clear for a Friday morning. It’s as though all of the annoying, lollygagging drivers have decided to stay home and only the people who drive 70 mph in a 65 zone have come out. It’s nice. I breeze into work at precisely 8:50 am and notice a plethora of open parking spots. An embarrassment of parking spots. In fact, every single parking spot is open, because the parking lot is empty. No one else is here. Whereupon I glance at the clock on the dashboard and notice that it says 7:50 am…

Christ, no, I think. Surely, this just means that I never reset my car clock after daylight savings time. It is really 8:50 am, right? Right?

I get out my cell phone and check: 7:50 am.

Since I do not have access to the library until 8:30 am, and I really don’t feel like sitting in the empty parking lot fuming for the next forty minutes, I turn around and drive home. Which just goes to show that the alarm clock must be in league with the petroleum industry. We’ll make her drive to work TWICE today, the alarm clock must have schemed. I check the accursed device immediately upon arriving back home, and sure enough it informs me that it is 9:06 am, precisely one hour later than it really is. I don’t remember setting it ahead by an hour, though god knows I’ve done some crazy things in my sleep. Perhaps the cat is responsible. She certainly is happy as I type this, having earned her morning constitution after all.