Behind the Ironic Column

Some of my friends might say that my life always seems to be upside-down (and who knows what strangers may say).  But I don’t tend to look at it that way.  So some things that might seem abnormal to an outsider are just business as usual to me.

There is one area that’s literally upside down – that I will admit to.  For reasons that are not at all obvious, my bedside clock radio recently started showing signs of some kind of interference.  It’s done that before when I had a halogen light on in the other room, so I checked the rest of the place to see if something unusual was plugged in or turned on.  No issues there, so I tried adjusting the dials on the radio itself (this is all at 3AM which is when I want the radio to give me something to listen to).   This doesn’t clear up the static sounds but it does reveal that the problem is only on one station – naturally the station I really want to listen to.  Everything else seems to come in fine.  

Deciding that it must be a problem with the broadcast,  I pick a lesser choice to listen to and succeed in getting back to sleep.  The next night, same story.  It seems unreasonable that the station should be having problems every night. I tune it in on a separate radio in the living room.  Fine – no static at all. 

I have had this clock radio a long time – perhaps it’s just beginning to flake out.  Although it does seem weird that the effect is static on only one station.  In the course of various experiments over the next few nights, I accidentally discovered that the station seems to come in perfectly well if the radio is upside down.  That’s fine, I can use it upside down.  The only real issue is that the timer controls are all on top – so I can’t get to the sleep button or the snooze button easily.  Not that I use the snooze button anyway.  

It is just slightly disconcerting to look at the clock from across the room and adjust to reading the numbers in their upside down mode.  But, for now, that’s just business as usual.

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