Sleep

One of the downsides of sleeping like a dead rodent, besides the fact that there are no upsides to it, is the fact that it makes it very difficult to sort out my alarm in the morning. By 'sleeping like a dead rodent' I mean 'sleeping in a similar position to an expired gerbil with my hansd curled up under my chin' rather than a comment on the quality of my unconsciousness - a dreamless sleep such as the dead presumably enjoy is a rare treat for my over-active night-time brain, so I would be less inclined to complain about that. Apparently it's genetic, as my mother, grandmother and I all revert to sleeping with our wrists resting on our chin and our hands curled towards us in an impossibly twisted position. All this means that waking up to an alarm which requires the minutest element of co-ordination is a horrifically unsettling experience, involving as it does the gentle coaching of my numb hands towards the shrieking noise of my phone in the hope that they will get enough feeling back in them to press the right button and not condemn the Boy Wonder to another round of shrieking in ten minutes by accidentally hitting the snooze button. All in all, when added to the normal horrors of having to wake up at a specified time in the morning, the dead rodent hands might be just another sign of the early morning conspiracy against me.