The Pun Also Rises

"Daylight Thieving Time"

    Last week, sometime during the late night/wee morning hours on Sunday, an hour was stolen from me. I don't know how it happened; I was sitting at my desk working on the computer, and everything was perfectly fine. I lifted my glass of water to take a drink, looked over at the bills on my table, and glanced back at the screen. That's when it hit me - an hour had just been stolen from me.

    I wasn't quite sure what to do. I knew that the hour had vanished, and there were no clues as to who might have stolen it. I doubted that I could catch the culprit, and it was a bit too late to call anyone, so I went to bed and resolved to probe further into this mystery later in the week.

    On Monday, I checked all of my clocks - they all still seemed to be in the house. But that hour was definitely gone without a trace. On Tuesday, I decided to take action. Even if I couldn't recover that hour, I wanted to make sure that this never happened again. I went to my trusty white pages and looked up the numbers for some Security firms. First, I called ADT Security:

"ADT Security Services, S____ speaking, how can I help you?"
"Yes, I was wondering if you had any tips or systems you can offer for theft prevention. I think I had an hour stolen from me this weekend, and I was hoping you might have something to help me with that."
"*cough* Uh...Did someone break in and steal it?"
"No, I was sitting at my desk and it was just there, and when I blinked, it was gone. But there were no signs of forced entry."
"Well, we have burglary protection but no time protection."

I thanked her politely and hung up. No luck; it was time to try another firm. This time, I rung up Off Duty Officers:

"Off Duty Officers, C____ speaking."
"Yes, I had an hour stolen this weekend, and I was wondering if you might have any theft prevention systems to make sure that it doesn't happen again."
"*stifled laughter* Can you hold please?"
(hold music)
"Hello, This is Captain H_____."
"Yes, I was wondering if you might be able to help me with theft prevention systems? I had an hour stolen from me this weekend."
"What was the item that was stolen?"
"An hour."
"Well, you might want to call the time company."
"I don't remember subscribing to any time company, but do you maybe have a number for them?"
"Why don't you try 411."

    I was dubious about calling this number he'd given me for the time company, because if someone steals my shoes, I don't call Nike for help. But, I figured I'd give it a shot. I called up 411, and sure enough, all there was was a recorded message. They didn't have any leads.

    A co-worker told me that something called Daylight Savings Time had occurred. This made no sense, because when I put something into savings, it's by choice. Yet the way she explained it, it sounded like money was borrowed from you at an inconvenient time, and returned to you later at an inconvenient time -- all with no interest.

    It was beginning to sound like a pyramid scheme to me, and I knew someone had been running this scam for a while. Must have been a historical figure. Conrad Adenauer? Conrad Subtractanhour? No, someone less obvious. In fact, the culprit would have tried to cover his tracks. After consulting with my housemate, I found my man:

    Benjamin "Sticky Fingers" Franklin. All that "Early to bed and early to rise" talk was just a cover; the man slept late and didn't like the sun waking him up so early in the morning. A quick Internet search confirmed that Franklin was indeed to blame for the theft of my hour. All that remains is to track him down and demand the return of my stolen time, which I'll hopefully have time to do this weekend.

____________________

    Seth Brown is a local humor writer who thinks Franklin should go fly a kite. He appears frequently in the Washington Post's Style Invitational, infrequently in various other publications, and once in book form -- in his first book "Think You're The Only One?", published by Barnes & Noble. His Web site is www.RisingPun.com

All work on this page is copyright Seth Brown. If you are sharing it, please give attribution. If you want to reprint it, please contact me first.