A third helping of angels and time

A first helping of angels and time
A second helping of angels and time

What I don’t want is for readers to get the impression that angels have no idea when they are. 

The chief reason I find time mixups to be so noteworthy is how unusual they are in the general pattern. Just for example, this morning I was on the “late side” of carpool for Kiddo#3 and his carpool buddy. It’s not fatal if I miss carpool, but I’d need to walk the kids inside. All of us should have such tremendous hardships.

I asked my guardian to go ahead and “keep” carpool until I got there. And two things happened. The first was after that point, I made every light (except for the Awful Light at the Terrible Intersection–you know the one I mean because every city has one.) And secondly, although they usually close up shop when there are no more cars waiting, this time the teachers stayed–and I made carpool.

That’s the kind of timing manipulation I’ve been spoiled by having, and therefore when things go slightly wrong, it strikes me as “cute” rather than “incompetent,” and that’s the impression I wanted to give too. I apologize if I made it seem as if the latter were the case.

I’m stuck here for a second example because honestly, there are so many, but we’ll try one more. When my husband got his new car, we joked about what song we should use to “christen” the car. (Having an iPod gives us that luxury. I told you I was spoiled.) Naturally we laughingly chose things like “Drive” by The Cars, or “I’m In Love With My Car” by Queen. When he got the car home, though, I needed to return some library books and forgot all about the car-christening song.

Therefore–no iPod. When I turned on the engine, I punched the button for the radio, and the radio just went to whatever station the dealership had left it on.

And what’s the first thing I hear? Peter Gabriel, from “In Your Eyes,” and the line he’s singing is (no joke):

“I drive off….in my car.”

Awesome! Think about the split-second timing required to make sure that I turned on the radio at precisely the time that line came on the song. (“Jane, are you SURE you have your keys? Okay, go now.”) Talk about prestidigitation!

That’s why I’d always assumed angels had a strong sense of when they were, and why reading the clock wrong (or reading the wrong clock right) is neat.