Illustration by Drew Shannon
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Earlier this season, my husband and I pushed our shopping cart through the department store aisles, each colourful display trumpeting festive cheer.
“Think we’ll find anything as good as the singing clock under our tree this year?” I asked. It was our annual joke.
“We can always add it to Santa’s list,” Paul mused. He wasn’t really listening, too transfixed by the array of holiday chocolates and candies.
The singing clock was one of those items popular for about 10 minutes in the late 1990s. The clock was supposed to chime a different bird song every hour.
My mother had clipped a magazine ad and ordered the clock for my father, who had recently entered a care home.
Paul and I had been sharing a Sunday dinner with her when she showed us the ad.
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“You know how Dad loves all feathered and furred creatures, so I’m sure he’ll enjoy the sound of birds in his room,” Mom said, confidently nodding her head and pushing second helpings on anyone within range. “The ones advertised on TV sound incredibly life-like.”
She should have ordered from the TV ad because the makers of this clock from her magazine had apparently never listened to a real bird.
I was there when the package finally arrived in the mail with only a day to spare before Christmas. Together we tore open the box and slipped in a handful of batteries, ready to be transported to a tranquil summer garden in the Canadian Prairies.
Our garden vision quickly wilted. Oh, the birds did “sing” on the hour all right, but instead of melodious chirps and tweets, the clock’s mechanical noises were closer to a loud pinball machine than a meadowlark. One bird call sounded like a machine gun’s rapid fire.
“Mom, you can’t give this to Dad!” I cried. “He’ll think he’s under enemy attack!”
Mom’s head tilted downward as we sat side by side at the kitchen table. At first I figured she was crying. But no, she couldn’t answer because she was laughing too hard.
“But I don’t have time to shop for a new gift!” she said through her giggles.
Another unusual detail about the clock was its face. Except for two obvious bird species, the robin and the blue jay, we couldn’t identify any other drawings. And all the names were printed in Latin. Dad likes birds but I’m not sure he’d recognize official names such as turdus chrysolaus and zosterops japonicus.
“Look through the packing,” Mom suggested, “maybe there’s an English translation.”
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After a thorough search no translation could be found, although I did find instructions full of misspellings and printed in upper case. I read it aloud to Mom as printed: “Adjust the hands, must be clockwise to avoid striking chaos. If striking chaos, reset clock according up-on. From pm 10:00 to am 5:00 silence without any voice. If bird’s twitter sound modulating, change new batties … ”
I really tried to go on but this time it was me who simply couldn’t continue without laughing so hard I was crying.
Of course the “striking chaos” clock never made it to Dad’s care home, so on Christmas Day he received boxes of chocolate.
Instead, Mom kept the clock for herself and retrieved it from the closet every time friends and relatives came for a visit.
Each guest was treated to a demo, followed by waves of laughter from young and old alike. In the end, that $29.95 (plus shipping) was the best Christmas money Mom ever spent.
We brought out that clock out for a noisy spin around the hours for many festive seasons, until it finally stopped “striking chaos.” It was always way more fun than another fruitcake.
Shannon Kernaghan lives in Alberta.