time

The strangest events prompt me to recall really obscure childhood incidents. Today, as I was waiting for my time-challenged student to come back from a 5 minute break, I recalled what my mom used to do before I had the sense to watch the clock. We had this old keychain thing with a timer on it. I think it went up to 2 hours. You turn the dial, kinda like on an old washing machine, and it slowly makes its way back to zero. When it does, it buzzes as the dial resets itself. I used to go next door or down the street to play after school. I wore this timer around my neck. When it buzzed, I knew it was time to walk home. How clever. In the future though, I'll probably just make my kids wear a GPS tracking device with some sort of alarm.