The Clock

It's 3am and our crazy clock just struck 33 times. No, that's not a typo. 33 times. Don't mistake the number as having anything wildly related to the actual time; it might well have struck 9 times, or 22, or 3. The record number of strikes at one time so far, is 38.

At one time, this would've driven me bat-sh*t crazy, but clockmakers are highly overpaid, IMHO, and I'm too cheap to drive this old clock 22 miles to the nearest clock repairman (make that 44 miles, round trip, and another 44 miles to go fetch the thing) and fork over another $50 so he can make it strike the correct number of times, when I generally know what time it is, anyway, since we have another clock that plays well with others and strikes the correct time. And, although this clock strikes like mad, it keeps perfect time, so nothing really needs fixed.

I remember when we bought this clock. A local auctioneer used to have auctions at the VFW Post around the corner every couple of months or so, and DH and I considered it a night out. We'd gather up LO and a quilt and some toys for her to play with, and go sit and look at stuff and watch people vie for it and sometimes we'd vie for it, too. That's how we got our English banker's chair, a swivel one, for $12 -- and odd tables around the house, and our brass bed for $60, and some of our Depression glass, and lots of my linens, and our church pew, now proudly, beautifully refinished by yours truly -- and the clock.

We brought the clock home and proudly set it atop something in the kitchen. It worked from the day we got it. The face and pendulum are fronted by a glass door with folk art painted on the inside of the glass. But one can't see the painting from the inside, as it's painted over with black paint. It's old, probably pretty old, and is made of walnut. The backside of the clock is made from some pretty rough wood, and has the remains of an old label inside, although not enough of it remains to be read.

Within a month, moths had infested our kitchen. At first, we had one or two lazily taking a circuit during dinnertime, and we thought nothing of it. Later, though, I found their larvae in everything -- flour, sugar, teabags, even a can of Campbell's soup, even though I never figured how the momma got inside to lay her eggs. That was some kind of maternal determination. They had come from a teeny web-like thing in the corner of the wooden box that I never noticed then, but would carefully search for if we got it today, now that I'm older and wiser.

I threw stuff out and threw stuff out for a year or two, assiduously cleaned, and finally, ahh. It was over. We never had moths again. (Find some wood to knock on, quick.)

In the meanwhile, DH had built a proper shelf for it from walnut he had purchased at a woodcrafter's estate sale. He got a truckload of wood pieces for $1 at the very end of the auction, and we loaded armload after armload into the bed of his little green truck. This piece was from an old bowfront dresser, and the cove molding made a beautiful shelf for the clock.

The erratic striking would once have made me crazy, as I said, but now I listen to it with a sense of humor. After all, who else has such a crazy clock? It only seems more dear to me now.