Fighting the war against time

Sigh.

I find myself reluctantly taking part in a Battle of the Clocks. My nemesis: the omnipotent Clock Changer (CC). The CC creates his special brand of chaos by sneaking around the house, resetting all the clocks to some strange new timezone (sometimes eighteen minutes fast, sometimes exactly one hour slow) and then promising me that he didn't and wouldn't and won't ever again. It's like he can't help himself. A few mornings ago, I woke up at 6:30 am to the sound of sly fingers making the oven clock go beep beep beep. At night, I listen through the walls to him trying to talk himself out of taking the clock off the wall.

"CC," I said this afternoon, "why does the oven clock say the wrong time?" This after a morning pep talk on the subject of Don't! Please! There'll be trouble! Resist!! To no avail.

"Uh. What?" says the CC, eyes all doey, the very picture of beffudled innocence.

"This clock. Did you change it?" I try to keep a happy, just-curious tone.

"Uh, no. Mom says not s'posed to do that."

"That's right." And then we repeat the previous conversation. And them we have it again in the evening, when I come back from a short walk, its purpose being not exersize for me but for the CC, to see if he can resist while I'm gone. He couldn't.

So tonight, after finding the CC's alarm clock wrong (and turned off) (a major offense, seeing as it results in either dinging way early or worse, late) I have resorted to sneaky tactics. I've taped a bookmark over the oven clock. I taped two post-it notes (blue) over the microwave clock. And the wall clocks? I hid them. I'm not telling you where.

So now there will be no obsessing over time. It's not permanent, but I think I'll try to establish a sort of "you mess with them, they go away" system. We'll see what happens.

So here are the new rules. From now on, we are each allotted a watch. The CC can change his all he wants, ditto to the clock on his bedroom wall (trying to keep a sense of personal property as the reason for not changing clocks), but I will always have my watch on, and that shall be the official Time of the House. That and NPR. I have my own alarm clock, which will tell us when it's really 7:00 am.

I mean, I'd know if he changed my watch, right?

Right?

[to shed a different light, the CC was *awesome* today during nail-clipping time. And I got a spontaneous hug during our evening Buffy episode. Hoorah!]