I can’t put my finger on it…
…but there’s something about a really ugly clock-radio that I find completly adorable.
Like one of those cute-ugly teacup dogs, but for your nightstand.
They are Large and Square. They have Many Dials and Levers. They were not built to be pretty, oh no: they were built for pioneers not intimidated by the newly forged partnership of clock AND alarm AND radio. They want you to know they are not to be trifled with.
There’s a whiff of sly, nocturnal malfunction about them– like the volume control might, at 5:30 am, be far from the level you specified the previous evening. You’d be subjected to bursts of static at odd hours. You’d program in a BBC World News wake-up, only to be dragged from you sleep by something in a language you’ve never heard before, and a small shower of sparks. And some mornings, these little beauties would simply neglect to wake you at all.
Still, I covet them. Perhaps I don’t have a sufficient supply of nemeses in my life at present– no neighborhood children stealing pies off my window sill, no lovably flustered roommate flooding the laundry room or forgetting to poke holes in baked potatoes. Perhaps one of these adversarial little things could be exactly the source of frustration I seek.
Found here, here and here. At their final destinations, may they wreak all the havoc they promise.
i completely agree. there IS something about the ol’ clock radio that’s just charming. the last one, however, i imagine in a bachelor pad with lava lamps and vaguely pornographic music blasting from an eyesore system in the corner.
My favorite kind of pornographic, by the way.