Before clocks automatically synchronized themselves with a network time server, one could live with an alternative, personal interpretation of current time. That was Mom growing up.
Mom routinely set the home clocks five/ten/fifteen minutes fast (I don’t remember which). Even though she knew they were ahead, somehow it gave her comfort when planning at what time she needed to leave to arrive on-time for whatever appointment or event she (or we) had. We children did not understand: if you know the clock is fast and you’re able to calculate the difference for your planning, why not correctly set the clock and calculate that way. It made no sense.
Despite this coping mechanism, she routinely got us to school events with little time to spare, if not barely on-time then just a little late. I never missed a bus or the start of practice or whatever, but it was frustrating for us. Then we realized two could play at this game by setting the clock ahead an additional five minutes!
It then became cat-and-mouse: she figured out our five, so we went ten; she figured out our ten, so we went fifteen. This continued until the clocks were at least an hour ahead and I believe a truce was called….or I graduated and moved out and it wasn’t an issue for me any more, who knows.
[In all honesty neither parent were great at being on-time, likely resulting in my almost anal-compulsiveness for being on-time. In some respects got me married. Another story for another time.]
I assume she became better once she working, going to school, fewer young children at home, but I personally don’t know as rarely was her being on-time was my concern after I was on my own. But at that time, a completely different matter!
Image Credits
The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali, 1931
