I have a bit of a sleeping problem. 

Whether it’s because I’m watching Netflix or rushing to finish my homework, I tend to go to sleep past midnight. Unfortunately for me, I’m unable to  function on five hours of sleep. I function best on my full 10 hours of beauty sleep.

Left alone, I usually wake up around 2 p.m. As such, I heavily rely on alarm clocks. But time after time, they fail, causing me to miss numerous deadlines and classes. I am such a champion sleeper that I have even slept for 23 straight hours!

Four years ago, I invested in an extremely obnoxious $12.05 alarm clock in hopes of successfully waking up in the mornings. Unfortunately, that clock did nothing but anger the rest of my family. On most occasions when I would allegedly sleep through my alarm, my parents would bang on my door after enduring what they claimed was 15 minutes of intolerable beeping, and eventually turn it off on their own, leaving me to be late to whatever plans I had that morning.

I’ve repeatedly been told that I sleep through alarms, but I’m not sure I believe it. How could anyone sleep through such ear-splitting sounds for hours? I’m convinced that someone must sneak into my room and turn off my alarm in the middle of the night.

On one occasion, I missed an English class in which we were writing a very important in-class essay after two weeks of preparation. I guess I was so anxious for the class that my stupid alarm clock forgot to ring. 

I refused to believe that I simply slept through the alarm, so I interrogated every member of my family to see who had turned my clock off, only to find out my brother had slept in too. I have no choice but to accept that sleeping through alarm clocks is something that I might have to live with for the rest of my life, and I guess the disorder runs in my family. 

Then again, I have resorted to other methods, such as setting three alarms at once on my Alexa, cell phone and alarm clock — I’ve even tried putting my phone on vibrate and under my pillow in hopes that I could wake up from the vibrations, but unfortunately, none of these attempts have worked. I continue to sleep through them.

Needless to say, I am still looking for a solution because it gets pretty difficult convincing my teachers that I had my third doctor’s appointment of the month.