Outta Time

Late to German class today. Again.

My normally unreliable alarm went off at the designated time, but I decided to stay in bed for another five minutes. At the very least, I've now learned a valuable lesson about the difference between real time and psychological time.

Those extra forty minutes of what I can only assume was sleep are regrettable, but far from unusual. I seem to have a problem with getting up for early classes.

While so-called psychologists might call me "lazy", I choose the cowardly way out. I blame time itself. Hear me out.

Campus time is wrong, dead wrong. I used to think that my chronic lateness was just an obvious consequence of my unspoken belief in an instantaneous transportation device—I often leave when I'm supposed to be arriving at my destination—but this problem doesn't dog me later in the day.

Incidentally, if I had one wish, it would be for an instantaneous transportation device.

So I checked the official time. The anal-retentive that I am, I've long since set my various clocks to the exact time. As I suspected, they're accurate.

The average clock in Main Hall is at least five minutes off, which certainly explains my lateness. But the professors accept this chronological discrepancy, they adjust their watches to Lawrence time and leave on.

Not I. They're robbing me of sleep, at least five minutes a day. I no longer rise early to watch the latest rerun of "Gilligan's Island" and catch the proverbial worm. I have it down to a science, the art of the quick shower and the narrow escape.

I don't nap; that chunk of sleep is all I get, and since I can't seem to fall asleep before the night has returned to triple digits, I'm going to sleep for as long as possible.

If I had my all-black outfit, I'd correct this in some sort of daring midnight raid. Change the clocks, correct the error. For now, I'm like a conscientious objector, albeit a really fastidious one. We all know whose side time is really on.