Alarm.

School has started for me here in Eugene, but since Tamsen and I aren't allowed to move into our new apartment until October 1, I'm staying with some very kind people in our ward. I drove from Portland to Eugene on Monday morning so I could be in my workshop at 8:00, which meant I had to leave Portland around 5:30. I was pretty tired all day, and by the time I arrived at the house where I was going to stay, I just wanted to fall asleep.

So that's more or less what I did. I set the time on the alarm clock next to the bed, set the alarm, and went to sleep around 9.30. I generally have a hard time falling asleep under different circumstances than I'm used to (I didn't fall asleep until 3.00 the night before because I knew I had to get up early, which only made me even more tired), but I figured I was exhausted enough that I wouldn't have any trouble.

Clearly something went wrong, or else I wouldn't be writing about it. I tend to have a hard time separating dreams from reality when I'm tired, and sometimes I act our my dreams with hilarious results. (See also the entirety of this blog.) This was one of those times, so when you read the following paragraphs, pretend that you're in that half-sleeping half-awake state.

My eyes snapped open at 11.30. I heard a beep coming from downstairs. Oh no! When I set the alarm clock next to the bed, I must have set off the alarm system for the house! I jumped out of bed, turned on the light, and ran around the room clutching my hair saying "oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no OH NO oh no oh no oh no" trying to figure out what to do. I knew I only had thirty seconds to disarm the alarm before it started screaming and waking up not only the kind people who gave me a place to stay, but their entire neighborhood.

So I ran down the stairs, still saying "oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh NO oh no," frantically searching for a panel on the wall where I could disarm the alarm. I knew it would be easy to find, since it would have a huge LCD display with a timer counting down to zero. (By my sleep-deprived reckoning, I should still have had fifteen seconds to go, even though I actually spent about two full minutes running around in my room in a panic.) I ran out into the kitchen to see two loaves of bread sitting on top of the oven, having just finished baking.

And then it hit me that the beep I heard must have been the timer for the oven.

And then it hit me that I probably hadn't actually tripped an alarm for the house just by setting an alarm clock.

And then it hit me that I had probably dreamed about tripping an alarm, but didn't realize it wasn't real when I woke up.

And then I was profoundly grateful that no one else had seen me run downstairs in a panic. I slunk back up the stairs, calmed myself down, and went back to my relatively uneventful sleep.