Have you noticed how many clocks and devices with clocks you’ve got in your house? Just in my kitchen there are digital clocks on the oven, microwave, coffeemaker… and an analog wall clock way up high above my sink.
And we won’t even talk about the digital clock in my car, which needs to be reset by a few minutes every few months. This is OK if it’s running slow, because then I only have to push it forward a minute or two. But it’s dreadful it it’s going fast, because then I have to run through an entire 58 or 59 minutes to get it right. I usually just let it run fast.
Of course, there’s the annual time change when we gain an hour, which I generally love. But I really hate having to go around the house calibrating all those clocks.
Thank goodness for the devices that are ALWAYS accurate: our cable boxes, computers, iPads and cellphones. I am old enough to remember having to call a phone number to get the correct time. It’s nice to have something to refer to without making a phone call.
it often takes me a while to update the clock in the car. You’d be surprised at how long I can put it off by just reminding myself that it’s really 1:00 instead of 2. It usually doesn’t get fixed until I get into the car, think I’m horribly late for something and rush to my appointment — only to kick my heels for 30 minutes because I arrive too early.
And I’ve given up on doing anything to the coffeemaker. It’s nice to wake up to a freshly made pot, but setting that thing is such a pain in the ass, I eventually came to the conclusion that making it’s really no big deal to make it myself.
Several years ago, I purchased a clock radio from Brookstone that promised to make my life easier twice a year, by automatically updating itself overnight when the time changes.
Then Congress decided to change the dates for Daylight Savings Time.
The dates on that clock were hardwired in. So the time continues to change on the old dates — which means we have to change the thing FOUR times a year instead of twice. And sometimes we forget — as we did this morning, when the alarm did not go off at 5:30, because the clock said it was 4:30.
Fortunately, we only overslept a little bit, thanks to our Circadian rhythms, If only we could rely on them and not have to use a clock at all.
But I’m still tired. Guess I’d better make that pot of coffee.
