Why Your Timepiece Is Excessive

76027-004-9DBB0BB9Today I’m pondering time. Don’t worry, this won’t get real deep. Like, I’m not pondering the theory of relativity and electromagnetism and the implications of a real world warp speed that could get us to Taco Bell and back in .4 seconds.

No, today I’m simply pondering the necessity of timepieces. Really, there has never been a time in our world where it’s been easier to keep time. Yet, we still obsess over the types of watches we buy or the clocks we put in our house.

But why? Keeping time is no longer a chore. We don’t have to hop on our mule and schlep down to the village center to observe the sundial. The time is shown everywhere. It’s in my car, on my coffee maker, even my refrigerator. Well, not my refrigerator, but I’ve seen it on those fancy new ones owned by well-to-do folk.

Seriously, 90% of the world carries a phone on their person. And if you don’t, then just ask someone for the time and there’s a nine in ten chance they’ll be able to help you, o poor soul still using mules and sundials.

I mean, time tellers are so ubiquitous now that it’s almost embarrassing to ask for the time. Oh, you want me to tell you the time? You couldn’t like, I dunno, walk 10 feet in any direction and find it?

c04ce737We own multiple watches. I say we as in people of the world and not myself, who hasn’t owned a watch in 15 years. We have a watch for going out, a watch for work, and a watch for weedwhacking…spell check didn’t have a problem with weedwhacking, that was a little shocking…oh, but yeah, a watch for everything. I got a watch for everything too. It’s called an iPhone. And it’s accurate to like the astronomical millisecond. And I have no wrist bulge. #winning

Some people are still acquiring grandfather clocks. People are carefully hauling 200-pound timepieces on trucks and dropping them into their living rooms. They’re winding them up so they can be awaken from naps by bellowing chimes. Good golly why? You can get a two pound Echo and ask it to tell you the time, weather, or the prime minister of Bangladesh without twitching a damn muscle.

Now we have sophisticated, smart watches from brands like Apple, who figured that if people are going to strap something to their wrist, it better do more than just tell the time. And guess what. It doesn’t even show you the time when you look at it. You have to wake it with a button push. Apple rejects telling time as a primary function of their own watch.

That’s telling. Not time. Just telling.

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