In our marital
bedroom we have a clock. It is an alarm clock. It wakes us up when asked and
displays the progress of the day should either of us enter the room or rouse in
the night and wonder as to the hour. It is a useful device upon which I have
held some reliance but no particular emotional attachment.
It is my casual reliance on discerning the
early hours in which I am finding a frustrating obstruction. My darling
partner, my first wife, the girl whom I chose so many years ago as the supreme
companion, she has a sense of self awareness. This is displayed in part by her
desire to retain the looks we all lose as the aggressions and joys of life are
worn into our hide and become amplified by the gravity of our world.
A clock and wrinkles. I never thought a time
in my life would come where these two things would stand so firmly in conflict.
One of the key aspects of placing a clock in
place is so as to enable a casual observer to determine time at a swift glance.
To facilitate this, it is appropriate for the face of the clock to remain
largely unobstructed and displayed to a wide range of vantage points within the
room.
A wrinkle is, I am told, an unsightly
reminder of lost youth, a denizen of evils past and must be defeated, disguised
or destroyed. While I am complacent about my body’s marks of experience it
seems I am alone in this. The lady of the house has potions. She scours the
world, or more correctly the world’s purveyors scour her resources, to
experiment with creams, lotions, powders and oils of various origin all
claiming efficacy in wrinkle removal, or reduction, or calming, or shrinking or
some-such. I am no vain man but I do not think that my regime of occasional
facial bathing has proven to be any less efficient at dealing with wrinkles
than has the produce of global scientific research as applied or implied by her
potions. In a phrase, we both look our age.
The problem is, if one considers there is
any veracity in the claims of the wrinkle charlatans, then one is required to
practice application, rubbing, soaking and massage at specific times of the
day. Regrettably a clock is not required for this timing. One simply needs to
understand the intent of directions that give application times as ‘on rising’
‘as needed’ and ‘prior to retiring’. I know of no clock that can prescribe
these periods.
I guess the conflict may well not be
anchored in our differences in wrinkle treatment. It may be that I am a morning
person who wakes, occasionally prematurely, with a desire to know the time,
while she is an evening person who relies on the alarm to awaken her from
slumber. She needs to rise at varying times for work, I awake early for my day
as a routine. I like to see the clock, she likes to hear the alarm.
As her potions are required to be applied at
times that mainly correspond with rising or retiring, the potion pots, tubes,
tubs and cartons are assembled on her bedside table. The clock is electric with
a lead extending to the power point and no farther. The clock is therefore on
her bedside table. The moisturehenge obscures the clock. The moisturehenge is
of considerable complexity, volume, and variety. One has to say an impenetrable
henge of horologic obstruction.
So, I can’t see the clock. A solution is
impossible while retaining a conjugal sleeping arrangement. I worry about it
and it may be causing furrows in my brow. There is no solution to that.
Of that
I am certain.
She has proved it.
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