US GRANT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY My black beautiful new Apple cell phone had
run eighteen months without losing or gaining time or any part of it machinery stopping. I had come to believe
it infallible in its judgments of the time of day, and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable.
But one particular night I forgot to charge it and it ran down. I grieved about it as if it were
a messenger and forerunner of calamity. But after a while
I cheered up, set the time by guess, and commanded my worries and superstitions to depart. I went into Farr’s Jewelry and
asked the jeweler to set it by the exact time. The head of the establishment took it out
of my hand and proceeded to set it.
“It is
four minutes slow—the regulator need pushing up.”
I tried
to stop him-tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time But
no; all the human cabbage could
see was that the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed up a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish,
and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly pushed the regulator up. My watch began to gain time. It
gained faster and faster day by day. Within in the week it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse
went up to hundred and fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the time pieces of the County far in the rear, and was a fraction over thirty days
ahead of the Farmer's Almanac. It was way into November enjoying the snow while the October leaves were still turning color. It hurried up my house rent
bills payable and such things, in such a ruinous way that I could hardly believe it.
I
decided to take it into Verizon and have Gary fix it. He asked me if I had
ever had it
repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. He
had a look of happiness and nodded
Ok, pried the back open, and put a small cable connecter into its side, tapped on his key board looked at the screen and peered into its machinery. Then he said, "It needs cleaning and oiling, besides regulating, and to come
back in a week. I drove my car back the following week. But after being cleaned and oiled, and regulated my cell now slowed down to the
degree that it ticked like a helicopter with a broken transmission. I began to be left by buses and trains, I failed my
appointments, and I got to missing dinner. It now strung out three days to seven. I gradually drifted
back into yesterday, then the day before, then into last week, and the comprehension came upon me that all
solitary was gone, I was alone. I was lingering along in a week before last; the world was out of sight.
To be continued…
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
To read more Karl Wallace stories, your trusted mentor to
advise you on any matter, go to:
w.w.w.karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
