I was sitting pondering about this when my mind went back to my youth (I left home 6 months after my 21st birthday) and how my parents only ever had one clock in their home. It was quite a large alarm clock and I am trying to remember exactly what it looked like I don't think it was one of those with the two bells on top (I owned one like that many years ago) but I do remember it had little legs and a handle on top. I rather fancy it looked somewhat like the one on the right in this picture):
This of course made me think how many items we own these days that are duplicated. Do we really need so many of everything? I just counted up the number of 'things' in our home that would tell us the time if they were all going, which once they were.
There is of course the clock on the microwave and the clock on the kitchen wall (2 in that room). The remote for the R/C airconditioner has a clock as does the TV and the DVD player. We also have the clock on the mantelpiece MOH gave me for our 25th wedding anniversary. That's 3 in the living room.
In the bedroom we have two small electronic alarm clocks (when we had a queen size bed we had a clock each on bedside cabinets. Now we have twin beds the two clocks sit on the cabinet between the two beds. It's easy to stretch out in the night, grab our own clock to check the time). Also of course are our two watches plus two of my watches with flat batteries and two of MOH's with flat batteries. I also have dad's old pocket watch and MOH has one an elderly gentleman gave him when he was a teenager. That then is 10 timepieces in our bedroom.
In the spare bedroom both the VCR and old TV have clocks but are now unplugged as we don't use them. Also in there is an old chiming clock that belonged to my mum. It needs someone to get it going again....one day I hope. So 3 time telling items in there. We are seldom in there so don't need a clock in there. Out here I have the time on my computer and also my airconditioner remote so 2 in here as well.
I make that a total of 20 timepieces that are capable of telling us the time if they were in good condition (i.e. had batteries or were turned on). All in all it would seem we actually have 11 that DO tell us the time if we need it.
Last week my watch battery died and I was so lost without it for the first couple of days but then I suddenly found myself just depending on clocks in the house or even guessing the time quite accurately. I now have a new battery and am back to using my watch and not really using any of the clocks very much (except my bedside clock should I wake in the night).
We now only have one usable TV and/or DVD player so no duplication there. We have only one microwave and one car and one cat. I am beginning to feel that in this modern world we are way behind as, apart from time pieces, we don't have many duplicated items.
