When I met Gary twenty five years ago, at some point I discovered his stash of broken digital alarm clocks. “What’s up with all these clocks?” “Oh they’re all broken. Cheap stupid clocks.” Soon after, another clock “broke,” which is to say Gary slept through the alarm. He immediately declared that the alarm had broken, and came home with a new clock.
I thought of this last night when in bed he announced to the silence, “It’s a shame we’ll have to get rid of all our clocks. Stupid Republicans.”
I thought really hard about faking sleep, since I knew where this was going. Instead, I rolled over and sighed:
“WHY do we have to get rid of all our clocks,” as if I hadn’t guessed.
“Well,” he spluttered, “They were made before the Republicans decided to change when Daylight Saving Time is. Every clock is an atomic or a satellite clock. They all have outdated algorithms for when to switch to DST.” You could tell he was really really angry with the Republicans. If a Republican at that point had decided to literally invade our bedroom, Gary would have punched him.
“Dude, they just have a switch on the side. There’s no algorithm.”
“Don’t argue with me! I’m really mad we have to throw out all our clocks.”
“No, we DON’T. What about the people in central Indiana? Does that mean they couldn’t buy our clock? What about overseas? I’m telling you, there’s a switch.”
No. he wouldn’t have it. I’m thinking about throwing that switch a day early and pointing out that the atomic clock must have sent a message through the satellite to override the algorithm.
5 responses to “Alarming”
I’m lost. What algorithms? What clocks wouldn’t work? Why on earth wouldn’t they?
Why wouldn’t a perfectly good clock work? Well, because it belongs to Gary. We have to have high-tech digital clocks that get the current correct time from the national Atomic clock satellite, or some such rubbish. Evidently he has decided that if the clock is that complex it must “know” when DST starts, but now they’ve changed the laws.Short version: Gary likes to make trouble.
Hey, how did things go? I’ve got this mental picture of all the clocks in your house all broken and sprung out.
The Atomic clock (the one that communicates hourly with the Mother of all Atomic clocks) is correct. The “Smart” clock, which communicates one a day at midnight, is still wrong, but it usually is until the next day when it does its update.The analog normal battery wind-up clocks are of course all wrong, but they are easy to fix.Gary was amazed the Atomic clock is correct.
Next fall, wake him up at 1:55 am to watch as the clock miraculously resets itself at 2:00 am.The only correct clock in our house is the one on the cable box. Why didn’t caller ID fix itself? It’s a phone company conspiracy. Dun dun dun….Oh wait, we have our phone and cable through the same company. Huh.