Times of Convenience

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Time and tide wait for no man, but a man is free manipulate the times in the clocks to suit him, as long as he can reach them.
This wisdom has dawned on me this morning when I was just about to have Ishaan miss his school bus, because I trusted this clock in the living room and it showed 8:15 AM while it was actually 8:30AM.I sat on the couch relaxed and happy and proud that I had got him ready and dressed and fed 15mins ahead of time…so laze around a little bit and lecture Ishaan about being good at school and eating all of his lunch and be an attentive listener et al.
And then just in time, my eyes wandered to the kitchen and the gas stove displayed 8:30AM…my cellphone again 8:30…a momentary abulia…but two things can’t be wrong and I darted for Ishaan’s backpack and sandals. Somehow I helped his shoulders into the backpack and barely fastened his sandals and both of us just made it outside, just about one second before the bus….thank God , just once, for late bus drivers. Otherwise, I would have to drop him to school and get to work later than I already amAfter the bus left I promptly called hubby to let him know that the particular clock is running slow and needs a battery replacement or repair, first thing in the evening.
“Which clock”, he says “TV ke upar waali… that’s OK….no, I mean I know that.”
So, that was it…I didn’t hear the rest of it and got the crux-it was not the clock but its location. Since its directly above the TV, it had been deliberately violated to suit the one who could reach it. It was strategic planning-so he could buy the precious 15 more mins of TV time, so when I start hollering that its getting late, almost 11, every night, he could say –Oh, its still quarter to 11.That was clever and I didn’t know for how long it was like this!!
And when I think of it, all clocks in our home show different times, the one in the bedroom is 10 minutes faster. The logic behind that is so that we can get up earlier…when its actually 7:00, it shows 7:10 and creates that urgency to jump off the bed as its past the hour.
The only ones that show accurate times are my kitchen microwave and gas stove LED displays…the kitchen ones are spared-partly because food should be on time,I guess,and partly because they are within my arms’ reach and I can adjust them back.
Tampering the clocks is one way of taking undue advantage of height,among thousand others.