Tick Tock
Photo courtesy of Gratisography
Tuesday, September 15th, 2026Last weekend, I picked up my grandmother’s cuckoo clock. I had it refurbished at a place run by Russian clockmakers. A curiously odd father and son duo running a tiny storefront, hidden in the middle of a nondescript strip mall, about 45 minutes away. The entire place is completely filled with clocks, no two of them set to the same time.
Like the clockmakers, the cuckoo clock came back with some quirks.
The clock is inconsistent and doesn’t keep time well.
The carved maple leaf pendulum makes the classic “tick tock” sound, but seems to be moving faster than a single second per tick and tock. The constant overly speedy tick-tock generates low level anxiety. Like time is speeding away from me, and I should be moving faster than I am.
Despite the pendulum tracking faster than expected, the clock itself runs slow.
Each morning and night, when I have to perform the physical act of pulling the chains down to raise the weights, I reset the hands bringing them up to the correct time. When the hands are reset, the clock will sometimes chime the 13th, 14th or 15th hour - counting time that doesn’t exist. I wish I could somehow make use of those extra hours.
The cuckoo is surprisingly loud!
The dogs have finally gotten used to it, though I think it would be a stretch to say that they’ve come to like it.
When that little bird breaks down the tiny wooden door, doing its best impression of the Kool-Aid man, that’s most definitely not what time it is.
I don’t know how quickly the hands lose time, I do know that I can’t trust what the clock is saying.
Never ahead, always behind. Marching to the quick beat of its own little pendulum, generating all the anxiety, yet still a perfectionist crying out for constant attention, overthinking its way towards its ultimate conclusion.
Story of my life, right now and I’m not sure how long I’m going to take before I finally ignore all the noise and get on with all the shit I need to do.
I’m dragging my feet, and I’m running out of daylight, like the clock runs out of chain.
Stay Gritty