The D-VAC

Do you suffer from terminal snooze button pushing? Do the sticky fingers of sleep tighten their grip on you when your alarm goes off in the morning? Have you tried every trick in the book to rise and shine but without success? My son William recently suggested the most effective sound an alarm clock could make; the noise that would guaran-dam-tee that your feet would be hitting the floor a nano-second after it went off, snooze button forgotten. Care to take a stab as to what this oh-so-special sound might be? If anyone can guess this correctly, I will send them a Moosepat Originals hand-knitted dish cloth. Seriously, I will.

OK. Drum roll………

The sound certain to get you right out of bed would be that of a dog starting to vomit; The Dog-Vomit Alarm Clock! Yes, yes, I know….this sounds like the name of a band from the 70’s. But seriously, it’s genius and this is how I know.

One evening after work I was making dinner and heard Gandalf preparing to hurl on the rug in the front room. I only have one area rug; the rest of my floors are wood and tile; he picked the 1% of my floorspace that would not be an easy clean-up. Why do they do that? More Questions for God After I Die.…

At the first sound of impending rejection of dog food, the salad I was making became truly tossed and I almost vaulted the kitchen bar in my efforts to get to the sliding glass door in the opposite wall, while simultaneously attempting to assume a calm and soothing demeanor so Gandalf wouldn’t panic and run around making puke deposits everywhere.

I failed in this attempt.

Poor Gandalf; not only were his insides rebelling but I had morphed into a wild-haired banshee strewing lettuce greens, moving at lightening speed and coming to get him. His eyes were wide with terror and his toenails tapped a frantic tarantella on the wood floor as he tried to get away from both his stomach and me. The shock of it all at least made his gut hesitate long enough for me to fling the sliding door open and he escaped into the yard, safely unburdening himself of lunch on the grass. Poor puppy. He rarely does this so it was a surprise to both of us. We each took a deep breath and calm returned to the Wholam household. I removed the remaining salad ingredients from my clothes and decided to check on the progress of my flowerbeds; as it was a bit chilly I slid the door closed behind me and listened in horror as the “charlie bar” clinked into place, securely bolting the door.

A quick mental inventory recalled that the garage door was down (no keypad on the outside), I had not unlocked the front door and now the slider was not going to budge. I could see both my regular keys and my spare outside key on the table in the house, next to my phone. Why would the spare be on the table in the house, you ask? Good question; I was wondering the very same thing. PippinTook gazed placidly at me through the glass and resumed his nap; Gandalf and I were outside and it was getting dark.

The ending to this story did not involve breaking and entering; my dog walker has a key so I hoofed it over to her house a quarter mile away (all the while praying she was home) and made it back while it was still light. I let myself into the house, picked up the spare and tucked it into its secret spot outside. Whew, that was a close one. *fist bump to guardian angels*.

All this because of the sound of a dog about to spew. William was right!

The Dog-Vomit Alarm Clock operates at an instinctual level and is therefore impossible to ignore. No time for conscious thought; I was not in charge of my response. Time elapsed from flying salad to out on the lawn? Maybe two seconds. I think there could be a market for this and cat owners could purchase the feline model. Can’t you just see it being advertised on TV?

“Never sleep in again! The revolutionary D-VAC….only $19.95! And if you call now, we will double your value and send you TWO! But that’s not all….for the first five hundred callers we will include a hide-a-key box in the shape of your pet.”

And maybe a hand-knitted dishcloth.