Back In Time

I spend a portion of every day looking in to the past. It is my nature. It is one of the reasons I have that tag "nostalgia" appearing at the bottom of a great many of these posts. Since I tend to write these blogs a few days in advance, I am actually writing them from the future. Feel free to comment, Dr. Hawking. Or you, Dr. Hasslein.
Meanwhile, I continue to try and conserve time. It is kind of my special job in the family. My wife and son tend to spread out and luxuriate in all the space the time continuum affords them, while I am much more anxious about getting from point A to point B in the most direct fashion possible. The trouble with this is the way that time seems to collapse in on itself. No matter how much time we give ourselves, the space through which we travel to the Alameda Theater consumes the amount of time we have set aside. How can this be?
The easiest explanation would be dawdling. That extra trip back inside the house because someone forgot their sunglasses, or the keys to the car that we were planning to drive to the theater. Once inside the house, the random forces of physics generate a giddy array of distractions that keep us from making our appointed rounds. The most dangerous of these threats is the ringing phone. How many times have we fallen for this trap? Just because we hear a ringing bell, we feel compelled to search for the wandering phone and, more often than not, we ignore the caller ID conveniently located just above the "on" button. "Hello? No. We were just on our way out." And so begins the great time suck that causes us to roar out of the driveway some minutes later in hopes of saving some of the time we spent answering the phone call that we never would have known about if we hadn't gone back inside for the sunglasses in the first place.
If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I'd like to do would probably give Jim Croce a few more moments on earth. Then I would try and figure out how to sprinkle a few more drops into the days that feel like they need them. The ones where I am rushing here or there. The ones where it feels like I just sat down before I had to leap back up into action. I know it's not very scientific, but I just want enough time to get parked, buy my large cola product and Junior Mints, and find a seat before the lights go down.
I blame Daylight Savings Time.