For instance, when I found that three mornings in a row I had shut off my new alarm and gone back to sleep, I put the switch in the kitchen and tied it in to the coffee-maker. When you're up and have the coffee perking, it's too late to go back to sleep.

We all laughed about it at the office. Everybody thought it was cute. Okay, maybe rats running through a maze are cute, too. And maybe you're perfectly well adjusted, without a single gear that squeaks or spring that's wound too tight, and if so, I don't want to hear about it. Tell it to your analyst.

So my phone rang.

So I sat up, looked around, realized it was still dark and knew this wasn't the beginning of another routine day at the office. Then I grabbed the receiver before the phone could peel the second layer of paint off the walls.

I guess I took a while getting it to my car. There had been a few drinks not too many hours before, and I'm not at my best when I wake up, even on a go-team call. I heard a hissing silence, then a hesitant voice.

"Mr. Smith?" It was the night-shift operator at the Board, a woman I'd never met.

"Yeah, you got him."

"Please hold for Mr. Petcher."

Then even the hiss was gone and l found myself in that twentieth-century version of purgatory, 'on hold,' before I had a chance to protest.

Actually, I didn't mind. It gave me a chance to wake up. I yawned and scratched, put on my glasses, and peered at the dart tacked to the wall above the nightstand. There he was, C. Gordon Petcher, just below the chairman and the line that read "GO-TEAM MEMBERS -- Notify the following for all catastrophic accidents." The chart is changed every Thursday at the end of the work day. The Chairman, Roger Ryan, is the only name that appears on every one. No matter what happens, at any time of the day, Ryan is the first to hear about it.