Barnaby “The Buzzkill” Butterfield was notorious for his relationship with the snooze button. His alarm, a cheerful chirping robin named “Chirpy” (a misguided attempt at positivity from his wife), was perpetually silenced by Barnaby’s aggressive thumb. This morning, however, was different. It was the Snooze Button Showdown, a yearly competition held in his apartment building’s surprisingly competitive residents’ association.
Barnaby, armed with his trusty, oversized, fluffy slippers, faced his arch-nemesis, Agnes Periwinkle, a tiny woman with a surprisingly powerful slap. Agnes, renowned for her lightning-fast reflexes and strategic snooze-button deployment, was considered the reigning champion.
“Ready, Butterfield?” Agnes cackled, her eyes gleaming with mischief. Her alarm, a booming foghorn affectionately nicknamed “Foggy,” had already been dispatched with a single, decisive tap.
Barnaby gulped. Chirpy chirped encouragingly, completely oblivious to the impending doom. He’d practiced his snooze-button technique all week – a combination of rapid-fire taps and strategic finger-wiggling he’d dubbed “The Butter-Flick.”
The buzzer sounded. Both alarms blared simultaneously, a terrifying cacophony of chirping and foghorn. Agnes was a blur of motion, her hand a well-oiled machine silencing Foggy almost instantaneously. Barnaby, however, was frozen. His “Butter-Flick” faltered. He fumbled. He panicked.
The judges, a panel of three elderly ladies knitting furiously, looked on with rapt attention. The silence hung heavy in the air. Finally, Barnaby slumped in defeat.
“And the winner… is Agnes Periwinkle!” announced the chief judge, Mrs. Higginbottom, a woman whose knitting needles could probably win the Snooze Button Showdown themselves.
Then, Barnaby giggled. “Actually,” he said, a mischievous glint in his eye, “Chirpy’s battery died five minutes ago.” He’d strategically swapped it for a dummy battery to rig the game, and he had been pretending to push the snooze button for the entire show. The audience erupted in laughter. The judges looked stunned and even Agnes had to laugh. Apparently, in the Snooze Button Showdown, cheating is considered a sport in itself.
