Way and the bedside note.
Bedside notes and logic
We were going to bed one night and SWMBO wrote a note on a slip of paper then placed it in front of her clock-radio, brushed her teeth and jumped in. All the while I am there propped up against the pillow wondering what she wrote on the note.
She's an avid note and list writer. I suppose anyone living a busy lifestyle, such as we do, realises notes and lists are important tools; they help us make it through the week. She normally leaves notes in that spot in the kitchen every house seems to have.. the place where the post sits, bills fester, school permission slips lurk until the-night-before...
But not this note.
This note is sitting in front of her clock-radio.
I'm not a home-note person. I write notes at work in my diary, but not at home.
Lists are worse. I hate lists with a passion because they're all about control. Write a list and suddenly it has a mind of it's own, not unlike a Ouija board. The worst travesty of lists is their ability to leave things out. Take a shopping list. First it demands you go grocery shopping (the control thing) then it tricks you into relying on it.
It works like this; I return home to where SWMBO is bound to ask "Did you get the toilet paper?"
"Was it on the list?"
"It should have been."
"Well, it wasn't on the list."
This short but regular dialog is followed by the "You're a forgetful twit." look.
You can see what I mean. People automatically rely on lists. And lists let you down.
But this is a note, not a list and its on the clock radio, at night, at the wrong end of the house.
It can't be for anyone but her, if it was for me, say a romantic note, then she'd leave it on my pillow, or if not, then out next to the forgotten permission slip.
I lean over her, reach out and snatch the note.
It reads: "Wake up early."
...and it's on the clock radio.
I give her my best Commander Spock raised eyebrow.
"It says 'Wake up early.?"
"Yes dear, I have to get up early in the morning."
"You don't find anything wrong with this?"
"No."
I hand it back to her, and she replaces it.
We read for a bit. I read the same paragraph until I realise I'm reading the same paragraph.
"That note doesn't make sense."
"Yes it does."
"How?"
"I want to wake up early."
"But it's a note."
"Yes." I can tell she's getting frustrated at reading the same paragraph as well. She stops reading then she sighs with a "I am patient with you" look. She turns to me and explains "I wrote the note to remind me to wake up early in the morning so I wont be late."
I think about this. SWMBO is an intelligent person, one whose intellect I respect.
"Darling, how can a note help you wake up early in the morning.. what about the clock-radio?"
"What about it?"
"Use it. Set the alarm earlier..."
"I have."
"And you've written a note?"
"Yes."
Now it's my turn to sigh.
I start to giggle in both amusement and frustration.
"But why have you written the note?"
"When the radio goes off, I'll hit the snooze button. When I do I'll read the note and remind myself that I have to get up early."
Snap.
Logic.
Later, lights out and I am lying on my side enjoying the complexities of SWMBO's mind and the way it thinks.
I start.
Something's wrong.
That's it.
Sigh.
SWMBO's clock-radio has always been set fast. It never tells the right time...
