Just in case you've been waiting for it, 2006 marks the 50th anniversary of the invention of the alarm clock snooze button. If this is too early for you just smack it and celebrate it again in 2015.

This is a celebration of great importance to me because I live and die by my snooze button. My continued employment is a direct result of its magical properties. Were it not for its punctuated insistence kicking me slowly into reluctant wakefulness I'd never get up at all and a nursing staff would have to turn me regularly.

Every morning my alarm goes off at 7:30, beginning a daily cycle of alarm-snooze-alarm-snooze until an external force such as my wife, maddened neighbors, or the police intervene. You know those alarm clocks that wake you with the gentle sound of soft summer breezes whispering over a bubbling brook? Mine isn't one of those alarm clocks. Mine is the kind you could put on the bank of a rocky coast to warn off approaching ships. And yet it still takes a solid half hour for me to pass, kicking and snoring, through the Five Stages of Encroaching Consciousness.

First up, denial. It can't possibly be time to get up; I just put my head down 14 hours ago. Since my clock is obviously lying to me for nefarious reasons of its own, I slap the button and go back to sleep with righteous confidence.

Next is anger, which manifests itself in the way I embed the clock into the bedside table with my second snoozing. To avoid the wear and tear on my clock, table, and hand I have at times experimented with putting the clock across the room but I discovered I have unerring unconscious ninja abilities after I snoozed the alarm with a thrown water glass without opening my eyes.

(Gauri Nanda, at the MIT Media Lab, recently developed a rolling, carpeted alarm clock named Clocky that rolls off your table and hides when you hit its snooze button. Small wheels inside Clocky's shag enable it to move about and an internal computer helps it find a new hiding spot every day, thereby goading you to get up. Gauri Nanda is a dreamer. By the third morning in my house Clocky would be a small, burning pile of parts.)

The longest period for me is the bargaining stage when I start making deals with my clock, like agreeing to get up at a specific, mutually agreed-upon time (which is, obviously, not the time I set the clock for; that would be silly). Sometimes I'll wait for interesting numbers: 7:43, or 7:34. Something that makes a pattern. I tried only getting up at times that were divisible by 3 but I kept falling back asleep while doing sums in my head.

Maybe someone on Death Row watches minutes as closely as I do but it couldn't be with more interest. And I'll bet they don't bargain the same way. 'OK, when it reaches fifteen after, then I'll get up and go get executed.'

The depression stage goes fairly quickly, usually displayed with a single "Awwww. . . " and some minor unprintable words. Acceptance comes when I finally realize I'm fully awake, which is usually in the shower during the rinse cycle.

Even if it is slow to actually get me out of bed, my alarm has conditioned me. Once at Wendy's their french fry buzzer went off and before I knew what had happened I had flung my arm over my head and sunk it deep into the flower planter behind me, to the amusement of my friends, who were trying unsuccessfully not to shoot entire Biggie drinks out of their noses.

So far, this morning assault has worked for me. My only concern is what will happen if my house ever catches on fire. Do I have a subconscious warning system in place? Would some sort of innate survival mechanism alert me instantly, with my escape route glowing in my mind?

Now that I think about it, I'd probably lie there in the flames, promising myself I'd run for safety as soon as the three turned into a four. Or maybe a five.

Until snooze alarms are devised that can physically shake me, maybe slap me a few times — and I don't doubt that such are in production — that's probably the best I can hope for.

Maybe I could throw my water on it.