The clock next to my bed is 5 minutes fast. The microwave clock is also 5 minutes fast. My car clock is 5 minutes fast. My cell phone and computer clocks are perfectly on time because they're hooked to a satellite. So I avoid those. Recently, I found myself automatically subtracting 5 minutes when I glanced at the clock. I had gotten too good. I had to get a step ahead. So I changed my car clock to make it 8 minutes fast. Now I subtract 5 minutes when I look at the bed clock and microwave, and 8 minutes when I look at the car clock.
This is ridiculous.
Who the fuck do I think I'm fooling?? This is the kind of thing you'd do if you had a retarded friend who was always late. You'd change their clocks, and because of the fact that they are retarded, you'd think that it might actually make them less late.
In this case, it is almost as if the intelligent side of me is trying to trick the retarded side of me into being more punctual. Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe the retarded side of me somehow decided that rather than simply try to be places on time, I could just change time to make things start later.
This is no better than trying to quit smoking by placing your cigarettes on your dresser, leaving the room, immediately re-entering with a sneaky look on your face, moving the cigarettes into the drawer, and then tip-toeing out, hoping that later you'd notice the cigarettes were not where you left them, and shrug, thinking, "I guess I can't smoke today."
And even though I'm clearly aware of the silliness and ineffectiveness of my current tactics, it's the fear that accurate clocks would now appear to be less urgent than reality because of their lack of extra minutes that keeps me setting everything fast. In fact, I'm tacking 2 minutes onto my car clock tomorrow. No, that would be 10 minutes fast-- subtraction would be far too easy. 1 minute.
I'll tack on 1 extra minute. Don't tell Tim.
6 comments:
I do the same thing. We're fools.
i "remove" money from my bank account in anticipation of expenses i've forgotten. but then all of a sudden i "have" like 13 dollars when the account receipt says 300 and i feel paralyzed by my own magic.
I don't know Kai, and I believe she was making a witty statement of a foolish habit of her own. However, it went over my head.
i read this entry last week, yet it was not until just now that i finally figured out why you titled it what you did. however, i feel it necessary to defend my stupidity by saying that i hadn't thought about why you titled it as you did until just now, so it wasn't that i didn't get the joke, i simply didn't make the initial connection.....
Tim smokes??
The key is to set all your clocks ahead, but set them all ahead by different times so you can't remember which one is which. Also switch it up every so oftem. For instance, my watch is 2 minutes ahead, microwave is ~9 minutes ahead and alarm clock ~13 minutes (see I've successfully forgotten the exact times each one of them is ahead by). i also find it harder to notice/remember when it's an analog clock.
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