After
several weeks of frustration I have finally
managed to reset all of the various clocks and
timing devices in our house, cars and office.
In thinking back to earlier times, it seems to me
that when I grew up we might have had one or two,
at the most, clocks of one sort or another. The
clock in our car could be reset by just pulling
out a knob and turning it in one direction or
another. The old windup alarm clock was just as
easy. Very simple and very uncomplicated.
Also very low amounts of stress involved in
changing over twice a year when daylight savings
time came around.
Not so today. No, there are clocks and timepieces
in every nook and cranny of my house and my
office. The thermostats have clocks, the phones
have clocks, the answering machines have clocks,
and the computers have clocks. I’m surprised the
toilets don’t have clocks. Every year at this same
time I find myself in a total state of perpetual
confusion since I can’t remember if I have set
this particular clock or not. So during the night
when I get up to go to the bathroom, is it three
in the morning or four? Do I have three hours left
to sleep or only two? Is the alarm clock set
correctly? There is almost no panic in the world
like that of getting up a hour later than you
wanted or setting the clock incorrectly and waking
up an hour earlier than you planned. I’ve done
both. Anyone who travels and has spent time in
hotels knows what I’m talking about. Those clocks
are never correct. I’m always amazed at how many
are set to go off at 5:30 PM…who is asleep at 5:30
in the afternoon? What are they doing asleep
anyway at that time of the day? Don’t they have a
job? You can’t even check into your room at that
time since someone called ‘housekeeping’ hasn’t
finished cleaning. What, didn’t they think anyone
was going to be there the next night? Is this a
big surprise? Can you imagine what kind of a
personality is hired to change all of the room
clocks at one of those giant hotels in Vegas?
There’s a job you’d never guess on the old “What’s
My Line?” program.
The easy ones to fix are the windup clocks and the
oven. I do those first. They take on the position
of a sort of time central at our house. I use them
to verify my sanity and every clock is eventually
matched up to them at some point or another. Of
course by the time I manage to get everything set
correctly, six months have past and it’s time to
start all over again.
If your house is anything like ours, you have a
junk drawer somewhere to keep all of your
warranties and instructions for various
appliances. You can probably throw that
instruction manual to that eight-track tape player
away, but hold on to the book showing you how to
reset the clock on your answering machine. This
simple device can be adjusted by pressing the
record button at the same time as the pause button
and lifting the receiver while inputting the
correct time in ZULU numbers to correspond to the
atomic clock in Washington. Do not change any of
these steps otherwise you will not pass ‘GO’ and
you will be forced to start all over again. My
stereo has a clock that tells me the time in
military time format. The buttons are so small I
am almost at the point where I need to drag the
thing out onto the porch and get the magnifying
glass out so I can read the lettering. Of course
when you unplug the thing to take it out to the
porch you have to reset the clock all over again,
so there you have it. You must keep a twenty five
foot extension cord plugged in at all times to
allow you to move this device anywhere.
The clocks in my car are an entirely different
animal. Somehow they are programmed through my
radio requiring me to push and pull several
buttons at a time in order to adjust one hour. The
owner’s manual hides the instructions for time
changing under some strange category, which I can
never remember such as ‘preparing the flotation
devices’. The people who design these are truly
members of Satan’s family.
Of course I’m just being cynical and could make
this into a positive experience and treat this
like a game…sort of like an Easter egg hunt. Maybe
I’ll actually count all of the clocks and timing
things when we do the next go around in a couple
of months.
Gives me something to look forward to….as if I
need anything else. Which leads me to think…why do
I need a clock in my thermostat anyway?
