An unhinged tourist from a faraway land was found shaking violently in his hotel room, as broken glass was strewn all over the floor. There had been multiple murders — not of people, but of clocks. He sat there, looking ever so viciously at the damage he had done, slowly regaining his composure as hotel staff barged into his room, prepared for this moment by all the occasions they disregarded “Do Not Disturb” signs in their day-to-day work.
They offered him a bottle of water from his minifridge and helped him calm down. Soon enough, he was ready to talk. Staffers picked out a wall clock that had been laying face down, no longer on a wall and a table clock that was now no longer on a table or a clock.
When quizzed about the damage in the room, the tourist burst out furiously and said “what is wrong with your clocks goddammit??”
The hotel staff stared at him quizzically as he went on.
“I was told by my American friends that the clocks were going to fall back on Nov. 1. I was excited. I set an alarm with that table clock, hoping it would fall back but when I woke up, it was still erect on the table????”
“I looked at the wall, thinking ‘The table clock lies. After all, it seems to be an hour ahead. Surely the wall clock fell’ but no!”
“Your clocks were not behaving as they should have. I did the right thing. I made sure they were broken. Now you can buy clocks that actually work,” he said.
By this point, the hotelier had walked in and heard the whole story. He sat down and took time to explain to him the real truth, which was met with great denial and muttered curses at his friends, who he thought had swindled him. He also questioned everything else he had seen in America so far, for he had walked far enough the previous day — or so he thought — and not found the restaurant he was told was five miles away. Nor did he get as many apples as he had anticipated when he bought what he saw to be two pounds.
A settlement was reached with the hotel — he didn’t have to pay for the damages, as they took pity on his predicament. However, this was short lived, as the hotel management were less forgiving of the bottle of water he had been handed to drink from the minifridge. They had only charged him the standard rate, but that one bottle of water cost him almost as much as he’d paid to get into the U.S., thus leaving him empty after this ordeal — both in his wallet and his mind.
Anupras Mohapatra is a former opinion editor for The Daily Cardinal and currently serves on the Editorial Board. He is a senior double majoring in Computer Science and Journalism.
