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It may be the ultimate revenge of the nerds. A former graduate student at MIT has invented an alarm clock that hides from you.

While in alarm mode.

It also goes by the name, "Clocky." Cute.

Then so is Chucky, the malevolent doll in all those horror films.

Here's how it works: When the alarm goes off and the snooze button is pushed, Chucky — er — Clocky falls off the nightstand and rolls off into a hiding place.

Which means the next time it goes off — and it will go off — there's no rolling over and turning off the alarm.

No, indeedy. This time, you've got to throw off the covers, stumble to your feet, then hunt down Clocky to turn off that #%&* alarm.

Wide awake now? We thought so.

Even more insidious, a small computer inside Clocky's innards helps him (yes, of course it's a guy) find a new hiding place every morning.

So no looking for Clocky under the bed, where you found him yesterday morning.

Clocky, which sells for $49.99, can also jump up to 3 feet. That should amuse the cat.

Gauri Nanda is Clocky's inventor. Little surprise, her invention came more from necessity than mischief.

For she, too, has trouble getting out of bed, she told Columbia News Service.

"Having an alarm clock run away from you was an obvious solution," she said.

Oh, I dunno. How about just turning the danged thing off? How's Clocky supposed to know you're really going back to sleep?

The other option, of course, is to get up. What's the point of putting off the inevitable, I say.

But apparently lots of us do. One fellow even e-mailed Nanda from Scotland, praising her invention and confessing, "I've been known to use the snooze button from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m."

Good grief. Don't you know his mother had a time of it getting him up for school.

He's far from alone. A quick flip through the Internet finds that Clocky has a competitor or two — all designed to force you into a state of wakefulness. Among them:

● The Kuku alarm clock ($29.95). Shaped somewhat like a chicken, the Kuku starts crowing when the alarm goes off. That's not all. It also starts laying five tiny eggs into a basket next to the clock.

It's up to you, Farmer Brown, to return all five eggs to the basket. Then and only then will Kuku stop crowing. And God help you if one of those eggs rolls under the covers.

● Jigsaw Puzzle Alarm Clock. ($67). This one wakes you up not only with noise but by firing four puzzle pieces up in the air.

Want to shut off the noise? Fine. Just rearrange the puzzle pieces back in the clock. That done, you should definitely be all bright and eager for another day down at Amalgamated Widget.

● And last — though we're just about positive not for long — comes the Wake & Shake alarm clock ($44.99 to $59.95).

This one yanks open those eyelids with either a loud tone, flashing strobe or vibrating pad.

Incidentally, the tone control offers a 95-decibel volume intensity, just a few decibels shy of a jackhammer.

As for that vibrating pad, it can be positioned under your pillow or mattress for a "sturdy nudge" out of bed.

Hey, if "sturdy nudge" is what it takes to get you out of bed, you might as well just get you a wife.