This Is This

There’s nothing I like setting myself up for more than a fall.

As any blogger will tell you, we aim to please. Sometimes my sights are off, some days I’m just not feeling it at, there are times when there’s not much to tell, and occasionally I just feel like the face people make when they’re walking in light rain.

But there’s a responsibility that comes with writing and it’s a commitment and a pleasure and I enjoy the responsibilty of doing a challenge.

OK, example. Hannah Bridgeman, 1985 – about fourteen years old, 11 o’clock on a Springtime morning. We were in Mr Lill’s gym class and I noticed the date on her watch was wrong. I pointed this out, thinking that she might be impressed at someone whose attention to the details of others spilled over to a willingness to assist them in their lack thereof. Right? No?

Anyway, I pointed this out and she grumbled that the date was wrong for half the day and then at lunchtime it changed to the right one.

Now you don’t have to be a genius, or even me, to know that her date switcheroobob thought that twelve noon was really twelve midnight.

“Oh, I know why,” I said with a confident nod, but giving nothing away, implying an essential and mysterious understanding of modern timepieces.

“Can you fix it?”

“I think so. Can I have a look?”

She took off the watch and handed it to me. God, she had great thumbs.

I looked at the watch. “Yeah, there’s your problem,” I said.

“I can leave it with you if you want,” she said hopefully.

“I’ll fix it tonight and bring it back tomorrow.”

“Really? Thanks!”

Fact is I could have changed it there and then by winding the time on twelve hours and resetting the date, but I make it seem like a big deal that I could fix because I was excellent.

Stupid isn’t it? I made it seem like a big deal that I had no problem with, all because but I was so eager to be helpful and impress her.

We didn’t, by the way.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 8:51 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or you can skip to the end and leave a comment yourself.