So are these distinct alarms for different tasks/events, or are they like all emergency backup alarms, one-per-minute for every chance she might oversleep?
Since Dorothy is typically an early riser, I imagine they’re alarms for tasks like “alarm for jog, alarm for breakfast, alarm to study, alarm to email someone” etc etc.
Also makes me think Dorothy has never made use of the snooze button, and instead has a precisely timed set of escalating alarms
MM
I keep thinking Dorothy is me in college, but now I’m worried Willis genuinely has some kind of spycam footage of those days somehow.
Ryan
It wouldn’t surprise me considering that Zach Weinersmith has me or my spouse bugged. Not sure how he does it. Probably subdermal implants or … ?
Arian
I wouldn’t put anything past Zach Weinersmith.
HeatherJean
College was, for me, long enough ago that alarms were to be found on alarm clocks, and only one at a time. But damn, I was doing the same thing Dorothy is maybe two minutes before seeing the comic.
All-Purpose Guru
I have a set of alarms at precise intervals that cascade so that after you snooze the fourth one or so you basically are getting hit with an alarm every minute or so.
Sometimes it takes this to get me up. The kids’ teachers are remarkably unforgiving when the kids are late to school *again*.
Azhrei Vep
It always struck me as wildly unfair for children to get punished for being late to school when their parents were the ones causing it.
… Admittedly, that was mostly because I kept being the kid getting punished, but still. It’s not like grade-schoolers can drive themselves!
Well I have a friend who has to take her meds precisely the same time every day down to the minute or they’re way less effective, and she has almost as many alarms because some are like three times a day.
She normally wakes up around 5-6ish to jog. She can skip it and sleep in until she has to get up and eat for class (assuming she has any today anyway).
She definitely doesn’t have any classes today. She says in the strip that it’s a Saturday.
Proxiehunter
I definitely had a few Saturday classes in college. I’m inclined to think she doesn’t or she wouldn’t be sleeping in because she’s Dorothy but class on Saturday is a thing that can happen.
I would also be unsurprising with all the stress she’s been under and all the pressure she’s been putting on herself “sleeping in” turns into waking up Sunday morning because she’s seriously short on restful sleep.
I don’t know. I keep setting alarms to get up early, then new ones for 15 minutes later when I realize I am so exhausted on 4 hours of sleep that I can’t move, only to repeat the cycle again and again and I am fine. I mean I haven’t made progress in my life for a week, I’m always tired, and I want to pull my hair out, but it’s nothing getting up early won’t fix.
I feel their struggle. I am the ND where sleep schedules don’t exist, and when they have to exist for appointments and shit, it is whole body brain visceral PAIN ???
zee
Mood. It’s worth talking to a doctor about it to get medication. Seroquel works for me, without it I literally do not sleep. It’s not a knock out pill like Ambien, just enough to make me sleepy when I wanna be and then actually sleep through the night instead of a light 3 hour nap
Yeah, as of recently I’ve been self-medicating with Benadryl, but yeah given the fact that it also gets my baseline anxiety down, i might actually try out some anti-histamine based anxiety medication provided it’s safe.
I’m not quite that bad, but I DO have the normal alarm and a second one for a few minutes later bc I HAVE AND WILL sleep through the first one, which is always horrible bc the first one is a vibrating alarm (sleep with earplugs in since spouse snores)
YES I DO FEEL IT, NO I CANNOT WAKE UP FROM SLEEP PARALYSIS ALL THE TIME
As someone who has multiple alarms set every morning (I tend to wake up in stages) and has to do exactly this when I want to sleep in, I feel so called out.
As someone who distinctly Not A Morning Person ™ and does set several alarms for when I need to get up, I feel like… a morning person doing this is… odd? Either she’s not a morning person and has been forcing herself to keep the schedule of one, or she’s been sleeping so badly that despite being a morning person she needs that many alarms. Neither of which is good.
I am very much a morning person (naturally wake up around 4-6am) and I definitely set alarms like this anyway. I’m very anxious about being late for things and keeping on schedule, so I have alarms that are 10 minute warnings for other alarms so I can be ready to act on that alarm the moment it goes off for real
I very much have the impression that these are various alarms for things she doesn’t want to forget to do as opposed to an escalating alarm for getting up.
angie
right yeah only one of my alarms is a wake up alarm and since I usually wake up before it, it functions more as a “time to get out of bed and get ready” alarm, but my reminders app is full of all sorts of bullshit reminders for little things
I did this. One every fifteen minutes, from “two hours before I need to be out the door” to “when I need to be out the door.” Eventually I got to the point where my body somehow learned to tune out the alarms, to the point that even when I scaled the alarms back to counteract this, I was sleeping through the ones that were actually important.
I am fortunate enough that usually I only have to wake up at a time when I’d naturally be awake anyway. When I have an important appointment, I still set an alarm. I don’t need it to wake up (I’ll be awake anyway by the time it rings). On the contrary: I need this alarm to be able to sleep 😀 without it, I would have a shitty sleep and wake up so often while it’s still way too early… because I’d be subconsciously scared to oversleep and miss my appointment. But with the alarm set, my body and subconscious can relax: as long as it didn’t ring yet, it’s okay to just sleep!
It’s apparently something natural. The way I heard it described is that it’s your body preparing for the stress of dealing with the alarm clock. Isn’t that funny?
Which is why I do the opposite. I never set alarms, except when I ACTUALLY REALLY NEED TO GET UP RIGHT NOW. And that important alarm is always the same melody, and never used for anything unimportant. This does the opposite of tuning out: When I hear the first two notes of that alarm, I am *awake* no matter how little sleep I got before. Works like a charm.
Yeah, it took me a while to learn this. My body has its own rhythm and I let it do its thing and in return I feel less shitty in the morning. Not like… good. But less shitty.
Yeah I really don’t get the point of the snooze button: either you can sleep until that moment, or you can’t.
Having lived with people with snooze for anything has been a nightmare.
HueSatLight
Inside me are two wolves. They both want to keep sleeping, but one knows we have to get up and get a variable amount of ready for the day sooner or later.
I’m starting to see two groups here. One is saying, “what’s the big deal? I have reminder blips all day long.” The other is saying, “wow, that many alarms to wake up? what do you mean, ‘reminders’?”
Weird thing is, I do enjoy my reminders. How else would one remember to water the plants or sort through the email inbox? I even wrote an app just to remind me of such things in a less stressful way.
But I just feel so crap when an alarm wakes me up. I’d rather go to bed at ungodly times (8pm sometimes) just so I can naturally wake up way before anything important happens.
Which has had the added bonus of eliminating that insomnia caused by ‘augh if I don’t fall asleep RIGHT NOW I won’t get enough sleep and will be tired tomorrow so why am I still awake fall asleep already dammit”. Cause it doesn’t matter if I lie awake two more hours. Well I lose two hours, but I’ll be fine the next day either way. So my stupid brain goes “It doesn’t matter? Ok cool let’s sleep”
On the one hand, I also set lots of alarms for when I want to wake up so I feel for Dorothy on that; on the other hand, I do so because I have narcolepsy, and sometimes 15 alarms still Isn’t enough to wake me up.
158 thoughts on “Alarms”
Ana Chronistic
that’s alarming
…or…
wait ?
Ana Chronistic
meanwhile MY stickerbook is just my old Chemistry lab manual (don’t ask)
Stephen Bierce
I find that quite apt and creative.
Corronchilejano
Dorothy’s mental health is declining at an alarmi… damn it
Decidedly Orthogonal
Beautifully done. ?
Why people don’t just turn their phones off at times like this always confounds me. (Yes, I know / have heard all the rationales. Still confounded.)
Corronchilejano
I would be unable to sleep if my phone is off. What if someone likes my tweet?
nobodybasically
So are these distinct alarms for different tasks/events, or are they like all emergency backup alarms, one-per-minute for every chance she might oversleep?
Doopyboop
Since Dorothy is typically an early riser, I imagine they’re alarms for tasks like “alarm for jog, alarm for breakfast, alarm to study, alarm to email someone” etc etc.
Thag Simmons
Also makes me think Dorothy has never made use of the snooze button, and instead has a precisely timed set of escalating alarms
MM
I keep thinking Dorothy is me in college, but now I’m worried Willis genuinely has some kind of spycam footage of those days somehow.
Ryan
It wouldn’t surprise me considering that Zach Weinersmith has me or my spouse bugged. Not sure how he does it. Probably subdermal implants or … ?
Arian
I wouldn’t put anything past Zach Weinersmith.
HeatherJean
College was, for me, long enough ago that alarms were to be found on alarm clocks, and only one at a time. But damn, I was doing the same thing Dorothy is maybe two minutes before seeing the comic.
All-Purpose Guru
I have a set of alarms at precise intervals that cascade so that after you snooze the fourth one or so you basically are getting hit with an alarm every minute or so.
Sometimes it takes this to get me up. The kids’ teachers are remarkably unforgiving when the kids are late to school *again*.
Azhrei Vep
It always struck me as wildly unfair for children to get punished for being late to school when their parents were the ones causing it.
… Admittedly, that was mostly because I kept being the kid getting punished, but still. It’s not like grade-schoolers can drive themselves!
zee
The overlap between “self micromanaging type A person” and managing ADHD is a circle
Micki
… Oh. That would explain a lot.
ktbear
My memory is so bad I have an alarm for all kinds of things but this many alarms just around getting up seems a little excessive even for me.
Opus the Poet
Well I have a friend who has to take her meds precisely the same time every day down to the minute or they’re way less effective, and she has almost as many alarms because some are like three times a day.
Kaiyalai
Possibly both
NGPZ
Dorothy WHAT? That’s not being selfish, that’s being not self destructive. ??
Sterling
Almost like Dorothy is kinda obsessed with destroying herself
BBCC
She normally wakes up around 5-6ish to jog. She can skip it and sleep in until she has to get up and eat for class (assuming she has any today anyway).
Annika
She definitely doesn’t have any classes today. She says in the strip that it’s a Saturday.
Proxiehunter
I definitely had a few Saturday classes in college. I’m inclined to think she doesn’t or she wouldn’t be sleeping in because she’s Dorothy but class on Saturday is a thing that can happen.
I would also be unsurprising with all the stress she’s been under and all the pressure she’s been putting on herself “sleeping in” turns into waking up Sunday morning because she’s seriously short on restful sleep.
True Survivor
I don’t know. I keep setting alarms to get up early, then new ones for 15 minutes later when I realize I am so exhausted on 4 hours of sleep that I can’t move, only to repeat the cycle again and again and I am fine. I mean I haven’t made progress in my life for a week, I’m always tired, and I want to pull my hair out, but it’s nothing getting up early won’t fix.
Jo_cubstar
This was sarcasm, right?
NGPZ
I feel their struggle. I am the ND where sleep schedules don’t exist, and when they have to exist for appointments and shit, it is whole body brain visceral PAIN ???
zee
Mood. It’s worth talking to a doctor about it to get medication. Seroquel works for me, without it I literally do not sleep. It’s not a knock out pill like Ambien, just enough to make me sleepy when I wanna be and then actually sleep through the night instead of a light 3 hour nap
NGPZ
Yeah, as of recently I’ve been self-medicating with Benadryl, but yeah given the fact that it also gets my baseline anxiety down, i might actually try out some anti-histamine based anxiety medication provided it’s safe.
True Survivor
Mostly.
Ana Chronistic
I’m not quite that bad, but I DO have the normal alarm and a second one for a few minutes later bc I HAVE AND WILL sleep through the first one, which is always horrible bc the first one is a vibrating alarm (sleep with earplugs in since spouse snores)
YES I DO FEEL IT, NO I CANNOT WAKE UP FROM SLEEP PARALYSIS ALL THE TIME
Mark
It’s being appropriately selfish. Selfishness is like salt: we all need a bit of it, but too much can be harmful.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
What about the Excursions?
Doctor_Who
As someone who has multiple alarms set every morning (I tend to wake up in stages) and has to do exactly this when I want to sleep in, I feel so called out.
Proto_Eevee
Dorothy, you maniac, don’t delete them. You’re just gonna have to make them again tomorrow
Carla's #2 Fan
I bet she makes them daily anyway 😮
Da Boy
That sounds like a lot of work… and she probably consults her schedule which she also needs to make. Dotty is a peak workaholic.
Sere
I’m hoping she’s just deleting Sat specific alarms realizing she needs a rest day period… that is optimistic nonsense
Jason
As someone who distinctly Not A Morning Person ™ and does set several alarms for when I need to get up, I feel like… a morning person doing this is… odd? Either she’s not a morning person and has been forcing herself to keep the schedule of one, or she’s been sleeping so badly that despite being a morning person she needs that many alarms. Neither of which is good.
Angel
wouldn’t it automatically be set up to be like “delete for today” as opposed to it just permanently deleting future settings?
Needfuldoer
iOS gives each one an on/off toggle.
angie
I am very much a morning person (naturally wake up around 4-6am) and I definitely set alarms like this anyway. I’m very anxious about being late for things and keeping on schedule, so I have alarms that are 10 minute warnings for other alarms so I can be ready to act on that alarm the moment it goes off for real
clif
I very much have the impression that these are various alarms for things she doesn’t want to forget to do as opposed to an escalating alarm for getting up.
angie
right yeah only one of my alarms is a wake up alarm and since I usually wake up before it, it functions more as a “time to get out of bed and get ready” alarm, but my reminders app is full of all sorts of bullshit reminders for little things
Mark
Maybe her normal day is so full that no human brain could retain all of her commitments?
RassilonTDavros
I did this. One every fifteen minutes, from “two hours before I need to be out the door” to “when I need to be out the door.” Eventually I got to the point where my body somehow learned to tune out the alarms, to the point that even when I scaled the alarms back to counteract this, I was sleeping through the ones that were actually important.
Icalasari
My body learned to anticipate the alarms
Even if they change, I almost always end up waking 30 minutes before them
It’s… Freaky
Then again, having Jevil scream, “I CAN DO ANYTHING!” at max volume enough times might have something to do with it
findus
I am fortunate enough that usually I only have to wake up at a time when I’d naturally be awake anyway. When I have an important appointment, I still set an alarm. I don’t need it to wake up (I’ll be awake anyway by the time it rings). On the contrary: I need this alarm to be able to sleep 😀 without it, I would have a shitty sleep and wake up so often while it’s still way too early… because I’d be subconsciously scared to oversleep and miss my appointment. But with the alarm set, my body and subconscious can relax: as long as it didn’t ring yet, it’s okay to just sleep!
Da Boy
It’s apparently something natural. The way I heard it described is that it’s your body preparing for the stress of dealing with the alarm clock. Isn’t that funny?
Masumi
Which is why I do the opposite. I never set alarms, except when I ACTUALLY REALLY NEED TO GET UP RIGHT NOW. And that important alarm is always the same melody, and never used for anything unimportant. This does the opposite of tuning out: When I hear the first two notes of that alarm, I am *awake* no matter how little sleep I got before. Works like a charm.
Jamie
Yeah, it took me a while to learn this. My body has its own rhythm and I let it do its thing and in return I feel less shitty in the morning. Not like… good. But less shitty.
Fun fact: I have never done morning coffee.
NGPZ
re: fun fact, you poor earthling ?☕
Dana
re: re: fun fact: I guess it works for them though.
khn0
Yeah I really don’t get the point of the snooze button: either you can sleep until that moment, or you can’t.
Having lived with people with snooze for anything has been a nightmare.
HueSatLight
Inside me are two wolves. They both want to keep sleeping, but one knows we have to get up and get a variable amount of ready for the day sooner or later.
Mark
I’m starting to see two groups here. One is saying, “what’s the big deal? I have reminder blips all day long.” The other is saying, “wow, that many alarms to wake up? what do you mean, ‘reminders’?”
Masumi
Weird thing is, I do enjoy my reminders. How else would one remember to water the plants or sort through the email inbox? I even wrote an app just to remind me of such things in a less stressful way.
But I just feel so crap when an alarm wakes me up. I’d rather go to bed at ungodly times (8pm sometimes) just so I can naturally wake up way before anything important happens.
Which has had the added bonus of eliminating that insomnia caused by ‘augh if I don’t fall asleep RIGHT NOW I won’t get enough sleep and will be tired tomorrow so why am I still awake fall asleep already dammit”. Cause it doesn’t matter if I lie awake two more hours. Well I lose two hours, but I’ll be fine the next day either way. So my stupid brain goes “It doesn’t matter? Ok cool let’s sleep”
Needfuldoer
I’ve found it helps to set a whole bunch of them at random intervals, then only turn some of them on every night.
For example, set an alarm for 5:26 and another for 5:32, and switch off which one is tomorrow’s “5:30” alarm.
DailyBrad
It’s a start, anyway.
Angel
Surely there’s a ‘select all’ but hopefully she’ll actually be able to get more rest lol
EmTaya
OH she just like me FR
Kyrik Michalowski
On the one hand, I also set lots of alarms for when I want to wake up so I feel for Dorothy on that; on the other hand, I do so because I have narcolepsy, and sometimes 15 alarms still Isn’t enough to wake me up.
eh, whatever
Dorothy has at least 19, count them.
Icalasari
I have OCD and even I’M not THIS worried about getting up!
NGPZ
try getting up when ya got ADHD and autism tuggin at your body like two co-op players controlling different arms of an octopus
Autism: “I wanna get up and start coding to soothe my–”
ADHD: “NO”
a/snow/mous/e
Alien hand syndrome, as they say 🙂
NGPZ
BTW a/snow/mous/e, i don’t now how to ask this, but what do you make of it now that i’ve, ya know, embraced being called autistic? ?
Icalasari
Both of those and also depression, general anxiety, PTSD, Tourette’s, and like OSDD to top it all off
My brain is a fucking mess 😀
Comic.phile