I keep my phone by my bedside because the alarm clock app wakes me up so much more pleasantly than my actual alarm clock. I discovered this while I was on my first business trip at my new job. The screen lights up and a quiet sound like a distant, rolling surf fills the room. Then an overly-sweet but gentle tune starts to play. Way better than the jarring bleepitty-bleep bleepitty-bleep of my alarm clock.

I could change the tune if I wanted to, but I don’t want to. It’s pretty nice the way it is. And I can set the alarm to go off on the weekdays but not the weekend. Or I can turn the alarm off a single day and leave all the rest on. So why didn’t I shut off the alarm when I plugged it in last night?