Sunday, Nov. 01, 2009

What time is it? Depends on the clock

If The Man Upstairs has a sense of humor, surely he has a big smile on his face today.

It's the day we turn the clocks back an hour to Central Standard Time. To you and me it's just an hour, but it can play heck with an eternity.

It's no accident that time changes always fall on Sunday. Just imagine the thousands of people across the country who forgot about the fall ritual, sitting there in long empty pews in dimly lit churches this morning, wondering, "Where is everybody?"

Then it hits them harder than the thought that they could have had a V-8. And they feel pretty stupid. The only ones who know about their faux pas are the handful who also forgot to set their clocks back. And You Know Who, of course.

Is "gotcha" in the divine vocabulary?

Oh well ... since they have an hour to kill in church, maybe they'll say a Hail Mary or two that the war in Iraq comes to an end. Or that the economy rallies. Or the Rams win at least one game this season.

It couldn't hurt.

Personally, I've always resented these time changes. They throw a wrench into the delicate system of time management used in the Kuhl household.

First, there is The Clock. Every house has one. It's the absolute last word on what time it really is. It's usually in the kitchen.

When I was a kid, it was a big, round red clock with a yellowish face and huge numbers visible three rooms away. If timekeepers in Greenwich, England, ever lost track, I'm sure they would have called Pop to see what time it was on the Big Red Clock.

If the time changed at 2 a.m. Sunday morning, Pop didn't change the Big Red Clock after the 10 o'clock news before he went to bed. Nope. He got up at precisely 1:55 to push the hands back right on time.

Pop checked the Big Red Clock against the radio every day when he came home for lunch. He tuned in to WIBV, listened to the news, the hospital admissions and dismissals and the livestock and soybean reports as we ate. Then, stretching out on his back on the floor, with a Campbell's soup can for a pillow, he caught a few winks to the polka music and corny jokes of Otto Schultz.

"I vas zo zuprised to zee the lady eating mashed potatoes with her fingers," Otto said in his finest German accent, "zat zhe peas fell off my knife."

I didn't say they were good jokes. Just corny.

When Otto said it was "a quarter to one," Pop's eyes would open on cue and look directly at The Big Red Clock. You can bet it was exactly 12:45 -- time to head back to work.

If it was good enough for Pop, it's good enough for me. The digital microwave clock in our kitchen is keyed to the sound of the tone on KMOX. But sometimes at 12:45, I wonder if Otto would have approved of such a high-tech timepiece.

Once you get past The Clock, the fun begins.

Every Sunday, I wind the wall clock in the den and synchronize it with the microwave clock. The wind-up clock loses a few minutes every day. It's a complicated formula because it slows down as it winds down.

Depending on what day of the week it is, we know exactly how many minutes to add to the den clock to get the true time. It has a tiny screw-in gizmo on the pendulum to speed it up, but why tamper with a good system? When our kids were in school, their bedtime was based on this clock, so they knew on Friday night they got to stay up about 14 minutes and 40 seconds longer than they did on Sunday.

The alarm clock in the bedroom is set five minutes fast. When the alarm goes off at 5:30, I know it's really 5:25 and I can lie there five more minutes without feeling guilty.

The clock in my Nissan Sentra will stay on daylight-saving time for three or four weeks until I finally pull over, dig the owner's manual out of the glove compartment and figure out how to change it. Of course, I'll mess up all the pre-set buttons on my radio first.

The clock on the coffeemaker is seven minutes slow. That's the one I go by when I get home from work a little late. The seven minutes subtracted from the 25 minutes I'm late might just get me off the hook.

There's also a clock upstairs that's set on daylight-saving time year 'round. When we go up there in the winter, it's a nice reminder of warmer days.

It's a throwback to the one Mom used to have set to the time zone of wherever my brother in the service was stationed. It's nice to know when a loved one is putting on his jammies in Okinawa.

I just hope you read this column before you head to church today. If not, say one for me. You should have plenty of time.