OUT OF TIME

by Steve Steinbock

Crap. I just looked at my watch and saw it was Thursday, and I haven’t written my Friday column yet for Criminal Brief.

That’s not entirely true. I don’t wear a watch. I have one of those magnetic personalities that somehow cause wristwatches to have really short life-spans. I think the term is “electro-magnetic personality.”

Pocket watches tend to fare much better in my possession. I received my first pocket watch about twenty-five years ago. It was a gift from some of my students. Wow, what a concept: a timepiece that doesn’t yank out the hairs on my wrist. What will they think of next?

When my first pocket watch gave up the ghost, I found a cute Mickey Mouse pocket watch, and wore that until it, too, went the way of all timepieces. My brother-n-law the pawn broker got me a really nice antique Waltham watch, which I restored and wore for a year or so. But then I realized how much it was worth and couldn’t bear to carry it around in my pocket anymore.

With the advent of cell phones that show you the time, I stopped carrying around watches altogether. But I’m now discovering that the clock on my cell phone is so small I need glasses to read it. (I’m hearing the chorus of a Chicago song in my mind’s ear, and it’s not “Color My World”)

Getting back to where I was, I honestly didn’t realize it was Thursday night already. And I’m not making this up about my propensity for frying the inner workings of wristwatches.

Speaking of electro-magnetic personalities, I’ll let you in on a little trade secret.

[SPOILER ALERT: If you date it when magician’s explain how tricks are done, cover your ears.]

Magicians, even hobbyist magicians like me, often employ little gadgets and tools of the trade. When we communicate amongst ourselves, we often refer to these tools by cryptic names or initials. (“Attach the I.T. to your T.T. and toss it into your Topit or Lap it.” The preceding sentence makes perfect sense to magicians. Really.)

I’ve been known to use magnets for certain effects. Really strong magnets. Two weeks ago I was looking for a particular magnet – a really, really strong one – and I found it in a box filled with audiobooks on cassette. Not a good combination.

I have a sport jacket with a magnetic device permanently attached to a part of it. (I won’t tell you which part. Gotta leave some things up to imagination). Once at a convention, I kept getting locked out of my hotel room because the key-card would stop working. (By key card I’m not using it in the way magicians usually use the term, a secret method of locating a card within a packet; no, I mean the plastic hotel room keys with coded magnetic strips). It took me a day and a half to realize that my magnet was erasing the key every time I put it in my pocket.

[END SPOILER]

Where was I? Oh, yeah. I just looked at the clock on my computer screen and realized that I haven’t written my weekly Criminal Brief column. I’d planned on reviewing a couple of now-out-of-print mystery short story audiobook anthologies. They’re all on cassette, but fortunately they weren’t in the box with the really powerful magnet. I also considered following up on Leigh Lundin’s column about male and female points of view. Perhaps in the future.

I still haven’t written a column for Criminal Brief. It’s supposed to go online in less than three hours, and I have nothing to write about. What should I do?