No Mice were harmed

 

Today’s adventure is found at the far end of the watchmaker’s table.  It is a small tool whose name eludes me at present, so I will call them tweezers.  (Even though they’re not)

 

When we look through the large, illuminated magnifying glass at the mechanisms within any relationship, we see that a balance is required.  It remains a necessary part to achieve motion.  Over time we become attuned to the rhythm, and we can hear when the balance is slightly off.  Tic Tock – Tic Tock goes on repeatedly in the background while our lives play out on center stage.   We most often don’t even acknowledge its presence, but when it steps out of cadence our awareness trips on a light in our subconscious, our forward motion stops abruptly and we say to ourselves, something is wrong.

 

        In this instance, it is a grandfather clock that we took custody of as part of a settlement between friends. She didn’t want it, and he didn’t want it.  Since that day it has sat quietly in our living room.  Not having ever had sole custody of such a thing before, neither of us knew what to do with it.  After a few years had gone by with this hulk looming over the coffee table and over-shadowing the table lamps, we collectively agreed to relocate it to Craigslist.  It would surely look better there than here.

 

        “It needs to be working, if we are to sell it,” came the first comment.

 

        I do not know anything about Grandfather clocks, I said.

 

        “No one is going to buy it if it isn’t working,” came the second comment.

 

        So with flashlight and pliers I snuck up on it from the dining room, but in mentally leafing through my worldly experience I found no matches that included words like: Expensive, fragile, or phrases like: Your chubby hands will never fit in there.

 

  So I quickly retreated back to safe ground and suggested we continue to live in harmony with the handsome, albeit silent timepiece. 

 

        We did, for another year or two.

 

        Then this year’s garage sale arrived and there came a comment from the kitchen: “We should move the clock out where it can be seen.  (So, I moved it to the front door and on it hung a For Sale sign.)

 

        “If we want someone to buy it, it really should be working.”  (This was starting to sound familiar).

 

        Once again, armed with pliers, a screwdriver and raw courage, I opened the little access panel, shined my flashlight inside and discovered a noticeable absence of Ticks, movement and blind mice.

 

        The problem now, however, was that at any minute the neighborhood would be coming up the drive in search of garage sale bargains and I didn’t have much time left to tinker with tiny gears, brass levers or missing chains.

 

        “Hey wait!   Missing chains?”

 

        I discovered in the bottom of the clock’s cabinet the third weight, along with its chain.  I examined the other two weights and saw how they were connected and then proceeded to attach the third weight the same way.

 

Tick tock – Tick tock – Tick tock - it was as if I had just plugged it into the wall.

 

        The Grandfather clock was once again awake.  It was working and the pendulum was swinging and oh joy in the morning, we have lift off.

 

 

        In spite of this momentous success, it did not sell.

 

 

        In summation, I would like to add that although it keeps perfect time, and chimes on the 15 minute mark, the half hour mark and culminates on the hour with the traditional Westminster tones we are all familiar with, anyone absent of their sight will show up two hours late for tea, and will forever be running two hours behind the rest of the world.  For at five it chimes three.  At eight it chimes six and is always two chimes short of being correct.  Consequently, for the remainder of my relationship with this clock - I will hear my internal comments making the needed corrections.

 

 

No – it’s really eight.

 

 

       

        Now do you see?  This is what happens when you stick chubby hands with pliers into places designed to accommodate tweezers.   Things in my living room and in my head end up out of balance.