Alarm clocks

Chris Siebenmann uses iPhone as an alarm clock, and his reasons are largely why I too, I keep my old iPhone (which is no longer supported by the Oligarchic Cell Phone Company) as an alarm clock (and why I don't have a new iPhone that is supported is a complicated story I'd rather not get into for my own sanity). And I use the iPhone for all the reasons that Chris does. But one aspect that Chris doesn't mention is the ability to change the alarm sound to prevent myself from being conditioned to ignore the alarm. I have two stories about an old alarm clock (of the type that you plug into the wall) that illustrate my being conditioned to an alarm. Both of these happened in the mid-90s when I had been using the same alarm clock for maybe a decade at that point. The first was a dream. I was at work when my boss approached me. “Baah baah baah baah baah baah,” he said. Nothing I said deterred him from his speech impediment. “Baah baah baah baah baah baah.” He just would not shut up. It took…