Before alarm clocks were common and affordable, you could hire a knocker-upper to wake you in the morning.
A knocker-upper would come to the outside of your house in the morning and wake you up by banging on your window with a long stick. Sometimes, they would shoot peas at your window to wake you.
Some knocker-uppers would kindly wait outside the sleepers window until receiving confirmation that the person had woken up. Others would simply knock a few times and move on. I often sleep through my alarm clock, and having a knocker-upper who makes sure I actually get out of bed seems like a pretty great idea. I would prefer the kind that shoots peas at my window, though.
One question remains: who woke up the knocker-uppers?
