The extent of Rich's sleeping problems

Rich has a problem with sleep. He is impossible to wake up in the morning. The extent of this problem became painfully clear this morning.

You see, to counteract this problem, Rich has requested for several years an "alarm clock that will wake me up" for Christmas/New Year's. He thought maybe a CD/Alarm Clock would work, and so this year I (finally) got him one. Thus far it hasn't been particularly successful for him, although it works wonders for me. I've posited that he just hasn't used the right music. However, this morning's musical selection....Well...

We chose to wake up to the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 songs. The first song to play (chosen randomly) was Israel's much-maligned work of postmodern technopop genius, "S'ameach," a song whose controversy lay not only in Middle-Eastern geopolitical conflict, but also in the mention of a certain green, phallic vegetable.

In any case, that was all I needed to wake up and start bouncing about, getting ready for my day. Rich opened his eyes and then promptly fell back into deep slumber. When I returned to the bedroom a little later, Rich was still in bed, but moaning in agony. The reason?

Quite possibly the worst song ever written had come on.

Rich was so intent on not getting up that he couldn't even roll out of bed to turn off a song that exhorts us to let "our footprints leave a harvest for the children."

This is what I call a serious problem.