My younger son and his wife can sleep through an earthquake or a firetruck whirling through their bedroom. Even an old-fashioned mechanical alarm clock with huge metal bells can't rouse them from their dual comas. They live in the apartment next to ours (it's all one big house with my two boys, my two daughters-in-law, my two granddaughters, my wife and me) and so we can hear the alarms going off for ten full minutes without a stir from them.

But we learned a trick. They cannot stand their own dogs barking. They have two chihuahuas that sleep in bed with them and if the dogs hear a strange noise (but not alarm clocks) they'll bark like crazy which amazingly wakes their human owners. All it takes for the little buggers to start yelping is a gentle tap on my bedroom wall. Within seconds, my son or daughter-in-law will get up to quiet the alarm, which they assume woke their dogs. Yeah, I know it's sneaky, but what can I do?

Fellow blogger Shimshon 9 shares with us one of the most clever of inventions, the Palestinian Alarm Clock, guaranteed to have you flying out of your bed in seconds. Here is the Youtube video: