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Stanley could trace some of his earliest concerns about being late for work or school to when he was the impressionable age of five. The events of that particular morning all those years ago remained as troubling in his mind today as they did back then.
Yet still, he could never figure out why.
That particular Wednesday morning arrived as any other spring morning did in the small town suburbs of middle America. The sun shone bright in the cloudless sky. The snow which had fallen just a few weeks ago was gone now and the temperature had now climbed high enough to where only a wind breaker was needed for warmth when going outside.
It was on that particular morning where Stanley was scheduled to participate in a rite of passage involving time management. For the five or six months in which Stanley had been a Kindergarten student, he had a specific routine. His mother would wake him up, to which Stanley would get dressed, eat a bowl of cereal without milk on it, and then watch The Flintstones on TV. Once the morning cartoon was complete, a few last minute preparations were on order and then his mother would whisk him out the door and bound for school. This morning was different. It was on this particular morning that Stanley would be charged with leaving the house by himself without being escorted out the door by his mother.
On that Wednesday morning, Stanley’s mother had a meeting at the Ladies Auxiliary which would require her to be away from the house at the time that her oldest son needed to be dispatched off to school. It had been discussed the night before, and a plan was outlined to get Stanley off to school on time. Stanley would be left alone, in the house, all by himself for approximately 15 minutes. A small, green alarm clock with a yellow face and black numbers was placed on the console stereo in the living room and had been set to go off at 8:45 am. All Stanley had to do was wait for the alarm to ring, turn it off, and walk out the door and on his way to school.
“You’re going to be fine.” Mother assured Stanley with an air of confidence. “Just listen for the clock and leave when it goes off.”
“Ok.” Stanley wasn’t very sure of his response. As his mother packed up Stanley’s younger brother in the Impala for a trip to preschool, a nagging voice of paranoia was born at that moment and began to speak within the confines of Stanley’s head. “What if the alarm doesn’t go off? What if it goes off too late? What if you can’t turn it off?” Stanley began to worry.
Once the little brother was packed up, Mother came back in the house. “Ok Stanley, I’m leaving now. I’ll see you when you get home from school.” She kissed him on the cheek and turned for the door as Stanley continued to mentally interrogate that little green alarm clock with the yellow face and the black numbers on the console stereo in a desperate plea for reassurance that the little piece of machinery would do what it was supposed to do.
Through the living room wall, Stanley could here his mother pulling the garage door down after having backed the car out into the driveway. She was really leaving. She wasn’t going to be there to help him get off to school. What was he going to do?
Stanley ran to the living room window to catch a glimpse of his mother pulling out of the driveway. At the same time, his mother caught the panicked look of terror on her oldest son’s face. She could see how his mouth was open and his eyes stood ready to let loose the storm of tears which were just moments away.
She stopped the car, put it in drive, and pulled back into the driveway. She then collected Stanley’s little brother, and went back into the house. The Ladies Auxiliary would have to wait.
As she entered the house, Stanley threw his arms around her. “What’s wrong Honey?”
“The alarm clock isn’t going to ………..”
RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG.
Stanley turned to the alarm clock which had just accomplished its part of the morning’s mission. At the same time, it had gotten the better of Stanley. He was too young to know it at the time, but he would eventually figure that part out on his own years down the road.
Stanley never really did learn to understand his paranoia about being late. Throughout his life in school, college, and work, Stanley continued to suffer from a fear of being late. He had absolutely no conscious memory of ever being so late to class or work that the impacts of his tardiness were catastrophic. Yet still, the thought of being late triggered unfathomable fears in Stanley’s mind which he could never overcome. As such, he developed an obsessive compulsive habit about checking his alarm clock no fewer than three times a night before he could even get comfortable with turning in for a night of sleep.
At some point in his twenties, he had opted to move his alarm clock to a dresser on the other side of the room from his bed. By doing so, this would force Stanley to actually get out of bed in order to turn the alarm clock off. This would insure the fact that Stanley would not fall victim to sleeping in or being late to work.
Stanley never, ever, used the snooze button.
Flash forward another ten or fifteen years, and Stanley found himself in the middle of what he ultimately concluded to be a mid-life crisis.
The kids were growing up, and Stanley and his wife had become complacent with each other. Stanley’s job didn’t fulfill him with much more than a steady paycheck and generic benefits like health insurance and a pension. Certainly Stanley had a steady habit of getting to work on time, but he could no longer understand why he was motivated to do so.
The only thing which really motivated Stanley to arrive at work by 7 am every morning was that voice in his head which took on the appearance of a green clock with a yellow face and black numbers sitting on a console stereo.
By all personal accounts, it had easily been about two years since Stanley had used an alarm clock which was stationed on the dresser on the other side of the room from the bed. The layer of dust on the alarm clock verified that it had been quite awhile since Stanley had spent even a few minutes each night verifying that 5:15 am would arrive with an irritating beeping noise designed to pull any rightfully sleeping soul from the comfort of a warm bed, a soft pillow, and a dream about whatever the subconscious had offered up for the evening.
Instead, Stanley was now using the alarm function on his smart phone. Over the years, Stanley had become a slave to the comforts of the digital age where one could run their entire life through the convenience of a handheld device. Just in the last three years alone, Stanley had moved practically his entire on-line life to his smart phone. He received all of his email through it. He managed his personal calendar, his finances, and his list of things to do on that phone. He stayed updated on the news of the day through it’s various applications, and maintained his presence in the world of social media, all on his phone. He could take pictures and video with it, and play various games to hone his skills in poker, problem solving, and even using slingshots to hurl animated birds at devious green pigs. He could even look at dirty pictures on it too if the desire presented itself.
Given that so much of his life was on that phone, it only made sense for Stanley to use the alarm function to wake up every morning. Instead of using the traditional ringing sound which was employed by the green clock with the yellow face and black numbers stationed on the console stereo, Stanley had opted for more dulcet tones to make the practice of being jarred out of a peaceful sleep more palatable. After going through the entire selection of alarm tones offered up by his smart phone, Stanley opted for the tone known only as ‘Strum’.
The tone featured a few high pitched chords played on a guitar. It was a pleasant progression which offered up the imagery of rays of sunshine peaking out from behind a snow capped mountain in order to warm the lush green valley below. It came nowhere close to emitting loud buzzing, screeching sneers, or memory inducing rings that other alarm clocks were capable of. Instead, it made getting up every morning to go to work, of all places, just a little bit easier.
The days of Stanley feeding his fear of being late were numbered though.
One Monday morning following a three day weekend, Stanley wasn’t looking forward to returning to work. He had spent more time in the last six months dreading the fact that he had to be anywhere but at home and in bed. At the improper hour of 5:15 am when the sunshiny strums of a guitar interrupted his somber, Stanley deactivated the alarm on his smart phone and uncharacteristically admonished the device.
“Someday, I’m not even going to bother to use you.” For Stanley to say something like that immediately upon waking up was unusual. He never uttered a word until he was showered, dressed and feeding the dogs.
Little did he know that those words would be more of a prophecy instead of the complaint as they were originally intended. The wheels of Stanley abandoning his desire to be on time would be put into motion later that day when he received a cryptic text message from an unknown number later on that day on his beloved smart phone.
