At 4 a.m. the World is Too Small

         How do you wake up? A conventional bedside buzz alarm clock, a cellphone sound of your choice?

        If you can select the first thing you hear, it's a little easier to greet a new day.

         Unfortunately, most times,I no longer choose.  These days, I'm forced to wake up at 4 a.m. to the loud playing of the song I least like-- "It's a Small World After All." Remember when the song played endlessly during the old Disneyland  tunnel boat ride past all of those dolls? Unblinking dolls, in different national costumes, would emerge along the sides of the tunnel as the boat moved along.  The ride managed to be both monotonous and creepy.  As a kid, when I got out of that tunnel into the light of day,  I knew I never wanted to hear the song again.

         So these days, at 4 am, the world is both small and cruel.  Both the impossibly early timing and the alarm song  belong to an unknown nearby condo resident. Whoever it is takes a very long time to shut off the "music."

        While he or she struggles to wake up, I'm already out of bed, turning on the shower to drown out the song.

         One day, I imagine a neighborhood of cranky people in boxer shorts and bathrobes roving the condo building at 4:01 a.m.,  tracking  the source of the offending noise.

       Until then, my favorite time to blog is just after 4 a.m...