Time in a Bucket

Never have quite understood the logic of Daylight Savings.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the extra hour of sunlight in the evenings. One of the things that was always a downer for me, when I was working for a living, was going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark. I really looked forward to the government-sponsored clock shift in the Spring that would eventually allow there to be some daylight left in the evenings when I got home. Gave me more time to feel guilty about being too tired (read lazy) to go outside and play ball with the kids.

But now that the Colonel no longer wears a wristwatch, having given up the rat race for the seasonal, rather than hourly, governed life of a blogging farmer (and I use the term "farmer" looser than a newborn's diaper deposit), the concept of time has become, with apologies to Albert Einstein, a relatively irrelevant relativity. Time has taken on an entirely different aspect for me than it has for everyone else. Allow me to provide some examples in point:

Case 1. The Colonel is at the controls of Semper Fillit (my red, mud-bespeckled pick-up truck; not to be confused with Semper Field--my red, mud-bespeckled tractor) and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is lightly ensconced in her right seat drive director's position. Semper Fillit is traveling at a rate of speed roughly equivalent to the speed of smell as the Colonel is in no particular hurry, having no particular deadline to meet. A glance in the rear-view mirror reveals a pretty young coed in a brand new daddy-bought BMW, with the ubiquitous cell phone slapped to the side of her noggin, approaching the back bumper of Semper Fillit at a rate approaching a large fraction of the speed of light. As the Beamer and its blond operator close to within pistol range of the Colonel, and enters his bubble of relatively irrelevant relativity, the effects of temporal distortion are clearly evident, manifested by the marked and obviously uncontrollable physical behavior displayed by the aforementioned coed--hands thrown involuntarily upward; pie hole agape and mouthing verbal utterances symptomatic of sudden onset Tourette Syndrome.

Case 2. The Colonel is in his shop, merrily mesmerized by the effectiveness of one of his power tools at turning lumber into sawdust. The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda enters the Colonel's domain unbidden and breaks the reverie with a request, "I need some help with [some inane and totally unnecessary nest feathering project intended to soften the rough-hewn facade of Eegeebeegee]. It'll only take a minute." Seven hours and thirty-seven of those aforementioned minutes later, we have reached the approximate half-way point of the [some inane and totally unnecessary nest feathering project intended to soften the rough-hewn facade of Eegeebeegee] and cease labor due to the fast approaching onset of winter.

Case 3. Miss Brenda and the Colonel are wandering the aisles at Wally World doing our part to keep the world economy from collapsing into Stone Age barterdom. The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda mentions that she needs to stop in the craft section for a minute. Seven hours and thirty-seven of those aforementioned minutes later... On the other hand, the briefest stop in the sporting goods department elicits an almost immediate round of the foot-tapping, eye-rolling, and heavy sighing indicating that, to Miss Brenda, time has increased its rate of passage exponentially and we are wasting valuable time that could otherwise be spent on completion of the [some inane and totally unnecessary nest feathering project intended to soften the rough-hewn facade of Eegeebeegee].

Think I'll call the physics department at Ole Miss in the morning and offer my services as theoretical genius in residence.