Clocks. What are they? Most people have one. Some people have two. I myself have several, though I won’t say how many, as that would invite the kind of criminal element that has made Pickax, despite its modest population of three thousand, the per-capita murder capital of the upper Midwest. But I digress.
A clock tells time. This is its primary function. Can it do other things? Not really. It just sits there, ticking. Much like this column, which I am generously providing to the residents of Moose County at no small personal inconvenience. You’re welcome.
Koko, of course, has no need for clocks. The remarkable Siamese seems to possess an internal chronometer of supernatural precision, yowling for his dinner at exactly 5:30 each evening — not 5:29, not 5:31. Yum Yum, meanwhile, knocked a small travel clock off my nightstand last Tuesday. At first I dismissed this as feline mischief. Then my moustache began to tingle. Was she trying to tell me something about time running out? For whom? I made a mental note to check whether anyone in Moose County had been found dead recently. Statistically speaking, someone probably had.
Do clocks need winding? Some do. I wound one last week and briefly considered billing the labor to the Klingenschoen Fund as property maintenance, which, when you think about it, it technically is. My accountant agreed this was perfectly reasonable. Why wouldn’t it be?
The grandfather clock in the apple barn cost nothing, as it came with the property. This is the best kind of clock. I will not be purchasing additional clocks, as the local squirrels have already driven up my birdseed expenditures to an unconscionable degree, and one must draw the line somewhere.
What is the purpose of writing about clocks? Who can say? Koko just sneezed twice, which I interpret as profound agreement with whatever point I have just made. My moustache is tingling again. Somewhere in Pickax, something is probably on fire.
Clocks.
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