The Clock With Contempt For Time

Growing up in our kitchen there was a clock.  Everyone had a kitchen clock.  It was simple, it looked like chrome, it kept time.  

This clock, my mother's kitchen clock, would — for no reason at all — start going backwards.

See for yourself.

                             

My mother hated that clock, felt frustrated with that clock, swore she'd get rid of that clock if it was the last thing she did. But to me it was amazing. I LOVED THAT CLOCK and begged her to keep it.

"Mommy, mommy, please!  This is a GREAT clock!  What clock did you ever see that goes backwards?  Mommy!  It's a clock that doesn't care about time!!  It's like no other clock in the world."

She just shook her head with a disgusted look on her face, unplugged it then plugged it back in (which often made it reverse direction) and left the kitchen.  And one day — when I came home from college for a holiday — the clock was gone.

Then, years later when I was finally getting married (as my Gramma would remind me) at my engagement shower I opened the last box (another from my mom) and there, nestled in pink tissue paper, was the CLOCK!  Though she was still shaking her head in disbelief that anyone could want this clock, she'd saved it for me and now it was all mine.

A clock that went backwards. How great was that?  It felt as if that clock had a personality and it was feisty.  Irreverent.  Able to go against its very purpose and show it had a mind of its own.  How often does that happen?

Our first real home, a townhouse, was the place I got to hang my beloved clock.  Upon closer inspection I realized it was only painted silver — so I repainted it to match the trim in my new kitchen, a muted teal.  I plugged it in, and then, rather anxiously, waited for the time it would go backwards, hoping for my clock to reverse direction and slowly tick, tick, tick the seconds the wrong way.  Thankfully it did. And there that clock kept time and in two houses more.  Whenever it felt like it, it went backwards.  Oddly enough, that made me happy.  And it still does.
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On this Thanksgiving weekend, I am thankful to my daughter for showing her technologically-challenged mother how to embed a video!