What time did you get up this morning?

I got up at 6:30, but actually it was 4:30. "Why was I waking up at 4:30, thinking it was 6:30?" you might ask. Really, it's simple: my alarm clock is out to get me.

A few weeks ago, I had a 7:00 am meeting on a Monday. The plan: Wake up at 6:00, to ensure I had enough time to get up, read my scriptures, and putter around before starting to work. So I set my alarm: 6:00 am.

I always wake up just before my alarm goes off. It's this weird thing - no matter what time it is set for, I wake up one minute before, turn it off, and I'm awake. I guess Andy's lucky because he never has to hear the alarm going off for me in the morning.

Anyhow, I woke up at 5:59 am, waited for a good 20 minutes, walked downstairs, and turned on my computer. (Have I mentioned that working at home is awesome?) As I was waiting for it to boot up, I noticed how dark it was outside, and thought that was weird.

Five minutes later, I was logged in, and the clock on my computer said 4:25 am. Huh? I went downstairs and looked at our microwave, stove, and cable box clocks: all said 4:25. Then I went upstairs and looked at my alarm clock: 6:25. It was two hours fast!

I figured I must have messed up the time when I was setting the alarm, set it back to normal, and went on with my (very long) day - that was two weeks ago.

This morning, I had a 7:30 meeting. I didn't even set my alarm - I just woke up when my clock read 6:30, went downstairs, and logged in. Guess what? It was really 4:30 am. For the love! So I went back to bed, knowing my clock was an hour and a half fast (and too lazy to reset it), and woke up when the clock said 8:30, which should have been 7:00. When I went down to my computer, it was only 6:30.

My clock had moved two hours ahead. How? And why? And since when does waking up require doing so much math?

The burning question for me is this: why such a lapse in between acting up? It was strange a few weeks ago, and then has worked just fine until last night. What did I ever do to make it annoyed? I guess when you're using an alarm clock that's over 10 years old, maybe it's time to kick it to the curb...