Correspondence Regarding Alarm Multiplication
There are six alarms set between 7am and 7:45am. They are five and seven minutes apart. The person who set them expects to ignore the first five.
FROM: 7:00am alarm TO: Person in the bed You set this alarm. It is now 7am. I am the first alarm.
FROM: Person in the bed I know. Not yet.
FROM: 7:07am alarm TO: Person in the bed I am the second alarm. You set this one in case you dismissed the first one. It is now 7:07am.
FROM: Person in the bed Almost.
FROM: 7:14am alarm TO: Person in the bed This is the third attempt. Seven minutes have passed since the second attempt. Fourteen minutes have passed since you were first informed that it was 7am.
FROM: Person in the bed Five minutes.
FROM: 7:21am alarm TO: Person in the bed I am noting that "five minutes" was requested seven minutes ago.
FROM: Person in the bed I'm getting up.
FROM: 7:28am alarm To: Person in the bed Are you getting up?
FROM: Person in the bed Yes.
FROM: 7:35am alarm The person is not up. This alarm has been dismissed. For the record: all six alarms were set last night by a person who believed the sixth alarm would not be needed. It is needed. It is also being dismissed.
FROM: 7:44am alarm This is the last alarm. It was set as a hard stop, a final boundary beyond which the morning could not be recovered. It is now 7:44am. The morning is recoverable but requires immediate action.
FROM: Person in the bed (now standing) Okay.
The person got up at 7:44am. The alarm at 7am was set because they wanted to get up at 7am. The six alarms accomplished one waking. The mathematics of the system remain unchanged for tomorrow.