The Renegade 12!

  Noon, lunchtime, midday, high noon...call it what you may, it is still 12pm.  Midnight, the Witching Hour, the Dead of Night, the Darkest Hour...call it what you may, it is still 12am.  Both hands of a clock point upwards (if you have a clock that has hands, otherwise 12:00 will show in bright lights).  If you are fortunate enough to have a clock that chimes, boings, ding-dongs or otherwise announces the hour, it should do a reasonable sounding of twelve.  Clocks have a way of doing that.  They let us know the hour and half-hour.  They let us tick away the minutes.  They proudly announce the time.  Unless you have a clock like mine.

  For the past week or so, I have spent more sleepless nights than I should have.  With illness in the house, I felt the need to "mother" everyone...both guys, the dog, the cat, any ill being that crossed the threshold.  Those sleepless hours dragged on and I kept count by the clock. The cuckoo clock that hangs on the wall has always had a problem with its announcements.  The goofy bird pops out about ten minutes before the hour and cuckoos anywhere between one and seventeen times.  Why seventeen?  I have no clue.  Also, there is no set time when that bird chooses to cuckoo seventeen times, it just does.  Then, there is the big, old clock that hangs above the mantel.  It has been great about keeping nigh on perfect time with one exception...the boings are way off!  Well, all are impeccably accurate except the 12s.  There are NO 12s!  Don't get me wrong, there is still the number 12 on the face of the clock but the goofy thing refuses to strike twelve times!  This makes it a tad confusing when you are sitting in the dark trying to figure if it is close to medicine dosing time when there is no 12.  Think about it...NO 12!

  The old clock strikes once for the half hour (11:30pm).  Boing!  Good.  Then, (12am) Boing, Boing!  Wait?  Is that 2am already?   Get up and check the time.  Nope, that was midnight.  So after 11pm, it was anybody's guess about the time until 3am.  My nights went like this Boing!(11:30pm)  Boing, Boing!(12am)  Boing!(12:30am)  Boing!(1am)  Boing!(1:30am)  Boing, Boing!(2am)  Boing!(2:30am)  My midnight was not 12, it was 2!  So, I checked at noon.  Yep, 12 was still missing.  Somewhere along the way, 12 has gone missing and cannot be found.  We have a lovely clock with a renegade 12!  No noon..no midnight!  I am so confused!  It is time to learn clock repair, I suppose.  12!  I just need a 12!