Time was, I could easily be impressed by a simple bathroom sink that suddenly transformed itself into a shower stall. But there'll be a time for that story later on. First and foremost, how weird is the phrase, "time was"? Time only is, is it not? Time was seems to imply that time is no more, it is dead, a thing of the past. But I neither have the time nor the inclination, nor really, the scientific/metaphysical chops, to get all philosophical about time (though isn't about 62% of one's lifespan, i.e. one's time alive--before one isn't anymore though time certainly continues its is-ness--spent in the throes of some kind of time/inclination conundrum, unless one is the protagonist of Harry Chapin's [time was he--Harry--was is, but no more, Mr. Chapin, he dead, though the protagonist of said song, which, time permitting, I will get to, lives on forever thanks to the magic of recording devices and oldies radio] uber-hit "Cat's In The Cradle" in which case one will spend eternity [time is-ness to the nth degree, which begs the question, what is the nth degree in Celsius? The fth degree?] trapped in a Sisyphean time/inclination conundrum hell).
Anyway, all of this started with me musing all day long for some reason on the phrase "New York minute." I think I heard it on the radio this morning in between startled jabbings of my snooze alarm (time was I lived carefree, without the need for alarm clocks; then, just as my inclination to sleep more began to increase, so did the demands on my morning time, hence the need for an alarm clock, until, in due time and thanks to Darwin's hot-wiring my body to adapt to dog-eat-dog conditions, time became and still is, the time to employ a back-up time/wake up device to effectively do the job to disconnect me, if not disincline me, from sleep and into a somewhat conscious state in time for me to get to where I have to be at this particular time: ergo, a clock radio that comes on a good hour before the time I need to arise, and a secondary, nuisance-clock, i.e. snooze alarm variety, that bleats starting a good half-hour ['good' idiomatically speaking only, an hour or a half hour spent half-awake to news radio and every five minutes cardiac arresting myself to arrest the little clock's mocking little bleats--such an hour or half hour cannot possibly ever--time is or time was--be actually 'good'].
So all day long I've been thinking about the phrase New York minute, and beyond my admittedly provincial bias that big deal, time can fly pretty rapidly during the time of one's day, but why should New York get all the credit (I mean New York already claims a great strip steak, which I ain't no gustatory aficionado, but I'll bet my rump steak that that steak didn't originate in New York, and what, any fastest, biggest, best thing ever has to be a New York thing? So a sneeze that would really blow your eyes out if you kept them open is a "New York Sneeze"? Or after having to hold it in a long time, you take a "New York Leak"? For some reason, a "Chicago Leak" seems more appropriate in that case), I started thinking about what other "_________ Minutes" would feel like.
Would a Tuscaloosa Minute be the time it would take for a bead of sweat to roll rapidly down your forehead into your eye and causing you to cuss madly until you can rub the sting out? Would a Detroit Minute be the time it would take for a mob of octopi-wielding drunks to set your car on fire? Would a Dallas Minute be the time it would take you to realize, while soaking in a hot shower, that everything that seemed to happen in your life the last year was all just a dream? Would an Atlanta Minute be the time it would take you to get hopelessly lost on the freeway and find yourself in the exit only lane to the Highway to Hell? Would a Paris Minute be the time it would take you to nibble cheese and a baguette while sipping cheap red wine, fall hopelessly and painfully in and out of love, buy a stick of butter, and end up spending the rest of your life dressing in black and muttering c'est la vie through Gauloises smoke rings? Would a Cleveland Minute be the time it would take for your favorite sports team to crush your heart while you hit a massive pothole trying to avoid an orange barrel and the temperature plummets from a sticky 89 (degrees Fahrenheit) to a frigid minus 17 (wind chill) and another county politician's office gets raided by the FBI?
Anyway, time is I tell you the story that time was I started writing to tell you about (diagram that New York Syntax of a sentence, class). In a Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, bed and breakfast bedroom once, while I and my traveling partner lay sprawled on beds exhausted from four weeks of UK bus and train and foot trekking, a Limey Martha Stewart on Benzedrine displayed her family jewels--a new-fangled device that with a press of this wee button here transformed an innocuous though very appealing bathroom sink into, Bloody Hell Did You See That!, a full-size shower stall, complete with flowery curtain and for the first time in four weeks some good old New York Water Pressure. Well Jane Jetson my Cleveland Ass, I said, suddenly more awake than any time was or time is Poughkeepsie Snooze Alarm could would or better ever wake me, it's time to hit the showers.
Minutemen-Times
Cato Salsa Experience-Time To Freak Out!
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