Has this ever happened to you?
Laura woke up to the sound of the radio, and yelled for the kids to get up to get ready for their school buses.  Usually this is my thing in the morning – the alarm goes off at 6:30; I trot over to each room to wake the children, who ignore me and stay asleep;  I let the dog out, and then go back to bed until the next alarm at 6:45.  With that alarm, I push harder, and the kids still ignore me.  The drop-dead departure time for Bethany’s bus is 6:55 – any later and it roars by without stopping – so we usually need to drive her in, which she prefers anyway.  We have to be on the road by 7:00 to make Alex’s bus, which leaves from a store parking lot 10 minutes away at 7:10.  We’ve had to drive him the full 1/2 hour to school too many times, because he nearly always drags out actual movement and preparation until the last second.

Anyway, I got up, let the dog and cat out, and woke the kids, telling them that it was :39 and they needed to get up right away, leaving all of the lights on.  Then, I came back to my room, where I checked the time:  2:41 AM !  I quickly told the kids to go back to sleep, killed the lights, and went back to bed.

What happened?  Our other cat, Rebecca, has gotten into the initially cute habit of resting on top of the clock-radio.  She frequently hits the on and off buttons, although hadn’t done so early in the morning like this before.  Laura heard the music, but didn’t look at the time before waking us.