“Beep Beep Beep …oh, just 10 more minutes! Beep Beep Beep ….pushing the snooze button once again…” That’s our usual morning routine, and most of the time, we get up at least an our later than planned. This would not have happened in 1840 when Göttingen’s students used other methods to wake up: it was common to knot a string around one’s ankle at night and let it hang out of the window down to the street. At a certain time, the night watchman came and pulled the string until the student woke up.
Once, this fabulous story happened: the night watchman was supposed to wake up a student with deep sleeping manners. He lived in Neustadt, a small side street of Goetheallee. When the student did not wake up after several pullings, the night watchman leaned his back against the wall, put the string across his shoulders and buckled forward very strongly. Suddenly, there was a loud scream and the watchman was pushed to the ground by the falling (and now certainly wide awake) student. Oh boy, how much I appreciate the snooze button right now!
