A totally creepy thing happened to me this morning. It totally freaked me out.

You have to understand that although by Monday afternoon my fever was gone and I wasn't throwing up anymore, I was still worn out. And Tuesday I went in the hot hot sun to Herzeliya to do an interview, which involved a taxi, a bus, another bus, and a walk to the interview. Then a walk, bus, and walk (in the hot hot sun) my paper's office to take care of some paperwork. Then a walk, bus, and taxi home. Bad.

Then, on Wednesday, I had a lot of last-minute researching to do, because I'd lost so much time being sick on Sunday and Monday. It's pretty stressful, not knowing if the people you need to talk to will return your calls on the same day. By the afternoon, I was really worn out. I took a nap, even though I knew I should be writing my stories. Later, I pulled myself out of bed to go to a singles event nearby, which I had to attend for at least a little while because I was one of the organizers. I spent an hour there and came home from that around 9:30, having still not written any of my stories, which were due this morning. Bad situation.

So I did what I've always done in such situations, bad as they are: I set my alarm for a very early hour and went to sleep.

My stories are due at 10 am, and I had 3 of them to write. So I set the alarm for 4:30, figuring I'll get up by 5 and have a few hours to get the pieces finished.

My radio went off this morning at 4:30, and as any normal person would do, I hit the snooze button.

That's when the freaky thing happened. My cell phone alarm went off.

At 4:30 am. It went off. Did it do that yesterday? No. The day before? No.

Now, in the last few days there were times that the battery was really low, so it's possible that in the last few days, the phone was always off at 4:30 am. But the thing is, I don't remember the alarm ever going off at 4:30 am. How could I have set it for 4:30 am without knowing? And if it was an accident -- if I, say, thought I set it for 4:30 pm some time -- why did it go off at 4:30 am today, just when I needed it to?

To add more creepiness to this: It sang its little song three times, as it usually does, while I thought about the fact that this is so wierd. Then it stopped after the three-song cycle. I kind of looked around my room in a haze, thinking "God, that was weird," and put my head back down, figuring I'll snooze anyway until the radio alarm goes off again.

And then, the second my head hit the pillow . . .

the phone went off again.

Wo.

This freaked me out to the extent that I actually got out of bed at 4:31 in the morning -- those who know me understand the miraculous nature of that-- because I thought if the phone is going to go off at 4:30 (which may have a logical explanation but I don't know what it is) and then go off again 10 seconds later (which has no explanation at all), then this is a sign from God that I should get up and write my stories.

In the end, one of my stories was still 2 hours late, though well-done I have to say.

Why did the alarm go off like that? What does it all mean? Perhaps we'll never know . . . .