Sharp SPC355 Atomic LCD Clock

At the left is a slightly truncated image of the Sharp SPC355 Atomic LCD clock. As you note,it tells the time of day (12 or 24 hour settings), the day and month, the day of the week and the temperature (Celsius or Fahrenheit settings).

I'd bought it when mother was having trouble keeping track of the date, and sometimes PM and AM. And I must admit unless you get a newspaper every day or watch tv on a regular basis,you can easily forget. Mother's only reason for being concerned about any of this was to know what medicines to take when.

[We had a home health nurse who visited once a week, who in turn would talk with the doctor's office. who might change the amount or frequency. And some of the schedules were complicated: for example, one pill in the morning on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, but one and a half pills on Tuesday and Friday. But then sometimes during this schedule, she would take a different pill at noon. To be honest, I was never totally certain if I'd set up the pill boxes correctly or not. And then she would get confused and take the AM medication in the PM, and vice versa. I have the greatest respect for those who have to do this in the hospital or group home.]

When I got the clock home, I noticed there was no manual, then when I examined the condition of the box, I was fairly certain it had been bought and returned. Which is what I should have done but didn't.

By the way, the clock is an Atomic clock, which means that: "These clocks receive a radio signal from the most accurate clock in the world, the cesium atomic clock, transmitted from the American National Institute of Standards in Fort Collins, Colorado. You'll never have to reset this clock, even for daylight-saving time."

However, I do remember waking up one morning, and the day of the month was correct, but the day of the week was wrong. So I went through the process of resetting it. And I have a vague recollection of some other type of discombobulation happening. Oh, and the date and month part of the LCD face sorta faded away, then the temperature became to vaguely resemble a naughty word in Farsi. (Something to do with your mother and farm animals.)

Sunday morning, I called a friend to see if he wanted to have lunch around 11. I looked at the clock , and it said 10:20, so I quickly scurried around and was out the door by 11:45. But when I rang his doorbell, he said "You're early." And I fumbled around and looked at my cell phone, and it said 10:30. I was terribly embarrassed, I hate when this type of thing happens. I felt like an idiot, and I can assure you, I need no help in this regard.

After lunch, the first thing I did when I got home was to look at the clock, and it indeed was 40 minutes fast. I changed the battery and reset it again. I noticed how dirty the surface had become, so I took it into the kitchen and used some glass cleaner. However, it was like erasing a chalk board, for everything disappeared, and it looked like a blank piece of silly putty. One on which you'd expect to find paw prints of a dog, or the mother of all four-letter expletives.

At this point, I felt like I had nothing to lose by looking at the innards. Once open, about six or seven small pieces of plastic fell out - definitely not a good sign.

My next thought was to consider a sun dial or an Egyptian water clock. For some reason I learned about water clocks as a kid. I don't know how well anyone remembers the movie "Cleopatra," but there is a scene in which Rex Harrison is checking with the keeper of the water clocks. I don't even think they say what he's doing or what the clocks are. But I remember thinking, "Wow,.those are water clocks." I was disgustingly proud of myself for at least a week.

[My journalistic standards require that I indicate that this entry was indeed started at 0022 on 20061121 but edited and amended on the afternoon of 20061121. As Bette Midler says, "I do have standards; they may be low, but I do have them."]

PAX!