I had three wall clocks running: On the kitchen wall, on my office wall, and in the en suite (so I can see it from the shower—mustn’t be late to get nowhere in particular!). Glass cleaner and microfibre cloth in hand, I went to the first clock, cleaned it, re-set it, and (eventually…) got it back on its hook on the wall, ready to do its job until I need to reset it again September 2024 when we “spring ahead” again. I repeated that two more times—and then I decided to add the fourth clock.
I have another clock in my laundry area, but its battery died months ago. The clock was a gift from one of Nigel’s former bosses. It used to be on our kitchen wall until I got us a bigger one (now on my office wall). Nigel was indifferent to what happened to the clock he’d been given, but was keen to have a larger, easier-to-read clock in the kitchen.
When I moved into this house, I eventually hung the old clock in the ensuite, directly above the toilet, which I thought was funny (because, reasons). However, when I stood at the toilet to, um clean it, for example, the shiny convex chrome case reflected me and all my glory. This was disconcerting. I bought a new clock to replace it, and hung the shiny one in the laundry area in garage.
This past winter/spring, the clock’s battery wore out, but I couldn’t be bothered replacing it. Today, I changed the battery and the clock didn’t run. I tried a different battery (just in case), still nothing. I went and got yet another clock I that had once been in my office when we lived on Auckland’s North Shore, one that was also briefly in the suite here—but it has a loud “tick! tick! tick!” I could hear as I tried to fall asleep each night; it lasted only a couple days before I bought a new, quiet one that’s still there.
I put the battery in the “tick! tick! tick!” clock, and it worked just fine—still loud, but fine. I examined the convex clock, but there was no damage or corrosion (the battery was pristine, if discharged), so I have no idea why it wouldn’t run.
The convex clock is arguably the “nicest” wall clock we had, though we both pretty much moved on, if one can do that to a clock, and for both of us, it was because, reasons. So I’ll probably give that clock a more thorough look, and if it’s truly munted, I may strip out the metal for recycling. We had that clock for some 20 years before Nigel died, but it’s not something I need to keep; if it’s now just shiny junk, I’ll have no trouble getting rid of it.
In any case, all my functional wall clocks are now cleaned and showing the correct time, unlike my oven and microwave clocks, which I never change. My clock/radio/alarm in the bedroom has a button I push to toggle into and out of DST (which I did before I went to bed last night). Everything else—my watch, phone, tablet, computers, and my car all reset themselves. They are clearly my true friends.
While I was doing clock-change routines, I also tested my smoke alarms, and they all worked fine (I changed the batteries last spring, I think, but I periodically check them regardless of season). Just another thing checked off my seasonal list.
Footnotes: I do, in fact, clean the clocks more than just twice a year (the kitchen one in particular). However, I really do clean the clocks every time I change the time (or battery), and it just struck me as funny to say I got my clocks cleaned today. The photo up top is one I took for a YouTube video in October 2016, which was about that year's Spring clock change (and time in New Zealand). I also wrote a blog post about that video, and included an annotated transcript. I used that same photo for a blog post six years ago today (to the very day).
2 comments:
Actually, I can't remember the last time I cleaned a clock.
And BTW, I hear the violent euphemism when someone says, "I'm gonna clean your clock!"
The common meaning was actually on my mind, not because of my anger at having to change clocks again, but because it struck me as funny. Of course it did.
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