Time Change

There have been a number of articles and conversations about the time change and the negative effect it can have on people. One of those negatives is when you forget to change your clocks and arrive early...or late.

A few years ago I was to meet my brother for lunch. The clocks had changed the previous weekend, back, as it was autumn. When we are meeting I get ready and leave, and either shop first if I am very early, or sit and read, whatever works for the day. I don't wear a watch and depend on the clock in my car.

That day I was reading, and reading, and reading. It seemed like I was there forever...and where the hell was my brother? He was never late, and here he was over 45 minutes late, and I was worried as he drives across the city. With no cell phone he couldn't contact me.

I went into the restaurant where we habitually met and hoped he might have called and left me a message. No. He was now over an hour late and I was getting very scared.

Suddenly I saw him appear through the windows, walking casually, taking time for that last drag on his smoke before entering. Need I say, last straw. Safe and sound, just rude and late.

"Where have you been?" I asked, my stress showing.

"What? I'm only a minute late."

Then it dawned, I was going by the time in my car, that I had not changed. So he was on time and I was...in another time zone.

Yesterday I called my 90 year old neighbor to ask if she wanted to go to the grocery store. She said she was just sitting down to lunch. "Late for you, isn't it?" I asked.

"No, it's just noon."

"No," I said, "it's two o'clock." She argued with me, but finally realized what she had done. Instead of the usual 'spring forward' for...well...spring...she did the 'fall back' time change and was now 2 hours out of sync. But, boy, had she ever accomplished a lot for her day thus far.

Myself, I don't mind the time change. But then I have so little structure to my day that I barely notice. I just need to keep all of my clocks current, and have already changed the car.