Cuckoo Me and Cuckoo Clocks

Time can drive me a little crazy. I always seem to be battling it in epic contests that leave me feeling like I’m continually playing catch-up. And especially at the start of the New Year, when my one consistent resolution (as in I didn’t get it right last year so I’ll try again this year) is to use time more efficiently, I can get a bit anxious when there’s not enough hours in a day to get everything done that I had originally planned.

I stopped wearing a wrist watch some time ago because I don’t have any luck with them. Bad things constantly happen to the watches I have owned: they get lost, broken or are faulty in some inexplicable, unfixable way. Maybe that’s my problem. When I’m out of the house and away from the clocks that keep me focused, I tend to lose track of time. I should go to Cymax Clocks for a little time therapy.

Aside from the clocks that are part of other gadgets like the computer or the DVD player, I actually only own two working clocks. One is the alarm clock that wakes me up in the morning. It’s one of those AM/FM digital clock radios (and before you ask, yes, it is tuned to an oldies rock station) with nice big numbers I can easily see in the dark.

The second one I own is a novelty desk clock in the shape of a 5-piece drum set. My sister give it to me as a birthday present after I confessed to family and friends that I had been taking lessons and playing the drums for two years before I told anybody. The really strange thing about the desk clock is it looks almost exactly like my real life drum kit, same rich burgundy color and everything.

When my niece came to visit during the Christmas holidays, she handed me a brown cardboard box, tightly packed and securely tied with green twine. Somehow, I knew right away that it wasn’t a present. After cutting away the string and working my through layers of packing paper, I lifted out my cuckoo clock, the one my mother gave to me when I was three. It’s freestanding; the cuckoo bird sits in a cage on top of the clock housing. I carefully wound it up, and I entertained my niece by setting the clock so that five minutes later it sounded out the hour.

After she had left, the comforting sounds of the cuckoo clock filled the apartment, providing a sweet sound track as I went back to general busyness and other holiday preparations. Some time later, I realized that the clock should have sounded off another hour by now. When I went to investigate, I discovered that clock had simply stopped ticking. It seemed a bit anticlimactic; finally reunited with a fond childhood memory, and it doesn’t keep time. It made me a little cuckoo.