Clockwork

 For Christmas, my beloved gave me a thoughtful Zen alarm clock that will wake me up in harmony with my natural sleep cycle.

All well and good but clocks make me nervous.  I have not worn a watch in years.  I've been known to obscure my car's digital clock with duct tape and to remove the computer clock from the bottom toolbar.  There's no clock on the night-table because glancing at my bedtime propels me into fits of sleep-cycle anxiety.  (What if it is past midnight and I don't get my 8 hours by morning?  If I turn in by 9 p.m., will I wake up at 4 a.m. only to crash and burn during the morning commute?  Will I stutter by noon?)

Had anyone else offered me the alarm clock, I could have expressed my gratitude, packed the thing in its pretty box and re-gifted.  Not so with my beloved's.

"Just put the clock on your night-table, tell him you like it and learn to live with it," my dad said.  "It's only a clock."   This was sensible advice that I couldn't take.  Wouldn't take.

It seemed easier to accuse my beloved of carelessness at Starbucks a couple of days later.  Why couldn't he have given me a silver bracelet like last year?   What was wrong with a foolproof pound of chocolate-covered coffee beans?  Didn't he read the letter to Santa that I had conveniently posted in this blog?  Did ANYONE read that letter by the way (because I am still waiting for those coffee beans)?  And how about flowers?  Knitting needles? Soap? Bath towels?  A keychain?  Lovely things that wouldn't tell time and wouldn't mess with my life.  Things that wouldn't require me to change or consider someone else's opinion of agreeable bedtime routines.   Romantic things, hundreds of them, that I fully deserved.  Things that would effortlessly allow me to be the gracious, grateful, loving girlfriend that I wished to be?  And why was HE making my life so difficult?  Hand't HE heard of Christmas being a joyful holiday?

I know my beloved loves me because, although all red and upset-looking, he didn't whack me over the head with a pound of Starbucks Verona coffee like he might have had a right to.

I hope he takes me back.