How to Set Your Alarm
Durng a family get together, I was explaining to my two twenty-something nieces the proper way to pick a time to which to set one’s alarm.
I told them: “Let’s say you need to get up between 7 and 8. Well, you could set your alarm for 7:07, or 7:14, or 7:21, or 7:28, etc. You get the idea, right?”
“But Uncle Gene, why only those times?”
“Well, let’s say you set it for 7:17.”
“Yes…”
“Seven goes into 17 two times, but there’s a remainder of three.”
“So?”
“So? So? What are you going to do with those extra minutes? There are three leftover minutes that are just sitting around with nothing to do except to cause you trouble. They could ruin your entire day.”
They just looked at Uncle Gene with worried expressions on their faces. Somehow, I just could not make them see the serious danger they were in if they set their alarms to ridiculous times like 3:17, 4:23, or 5:59. Well, I tried. Sometimes, youth ignores the wisdom of age.