I have what I can only describe as a state-of-the-art alarm clock/CD player/radio. At least it was state-of-the-art when I bought it just over a year ago. I'm sure there's something bigger and better out now. Anyway, it has all these cool features (a daylight savings button, etc.) and I set my alarm to go off at the same time every morning, with the exception of weekends. That way I never have to set it, and even if the power goes out, the battery back-up is there to rescue me. I've enjoyed it thoroughly except for one thing: the display panel is a bright green color. At night, my room is illumined with a bright green glow.

As noted in the previous post, I have extremely sensitive hearing-- but I also have extremely sensitive eyesight. So every night I wrestle with my alarm clock display. Some nights I move it so it's facing the doorway (then when I want to look and see what time it is, that's a challenge), and some nights I drape something over it. Some nights I'm so tired that I ignore it.

Yesterday afternoon I was trying to fix my hair and I decided to listen to some music on my alarm clock. I was trying to figure out how to switch the radio on, and I noticed a little button on the far left-hand side of the clock. Guess what it was labelled? "Display Brightness." A simple push of the button eliminated the green glow.

A year of my life-- possibly dozens of hours of sleep-- have been lost because I failed to notice a little button that would have eliminated my trouble. Go figure.