2004-03-16 at 5:39 p.m.

Last night, I realised I had a piano student showing up at 8.00am this morning. So I dutifully set my alarm and thought no more of it.

I'm not entirely sure what went wrong. Perhaps my alarm is broken. Perhaps (and this is more likely) the alarm went off at the correct time, and I, without even surfacing from my comotose state, turned it off.

All I do know is that when I blearily opened my eyes this morning, the clock read 8.00am. Precisely.

"Oh, shit" I gasped, leaping from bed so fast that I became little more than a blur clad in lime green, cow print pyjamas.

I struggled into the first set of clothes I could find, which were my gym clothes from the previous day. I then bolted to the bathroom and observed, with much relief, that my hair had not done its usual morning trick of standing on end and making me look like I'd spent the night hooked up to a forty volt battery.

Exactly one minute from the moment I first rolled out of bed, there was a knock at the door.

I greeted my student and showed her through to the studio. I was feeling rather proud. I thought I'd gotten away with it.

That is, until five minutes into the lesson, when I noticed my reflection in the piano, and discovered the livid red creases my bunched up pillowcase had left all down one side of my face.

Damn.