The Crazy Clock Lady

Ever heard of the crazy cat lady?  Well, my kids call me the crazy clock lady.

Yes, yes, I know.  I have more clocks per square meter than most people.  

My latest acquisition is a cuckoo clock.  I had been on the lookout for a clock that rings out the hour of the day ever since that night (morning actually) that I had lost track of time and found out that it was  almost 1AM.  

I found this cuckoo clock on sale at FB MarketPlace on 01 November.  

It was a done deal after only a couple of messages.  She was upfront with the fact that it was not working, and when she discovered that the pendulum was missing, she gave me a $5 discount.  We met  up near the Town Hall Station exit on 02 November. (Special prayers and thanks to the Holy Souls in Purgatory for this transaction.)  The seller was a very nice lady who said they had purchased the clock thirty years ago when they were living in Germany.  Her advertisement indicated that the clock was in need of repair.  She said they'd moved several times and the clock had worked until their latest move but believed the clock could be fixed. 

I figured it would be a good project for me to work on.  I wanted to see if I could get the cuckoo clock to run as a possible replacement to the mantle clock that ticks so loudly my boss thinks there is a car making a left turn signal whenever we are on a call.

We brought the clock over to mumoffive's brother the following weekend.  He is the only one I know that has experience with cuckoo clocks.   He pulled the parts out of the box.  Checked out the clock and gave the chain a gentle tug.  He smiled and gave his initial assessment, "It looks like it's working!"  

He took down the picture frame hanging on their dining room wall and set up the clock and the weights.  He got the pendulum from their clock and installed it on my clock.   

Tick-tock-tick-tock, it went.  After a while it went, "Cuckoo!  Cuckoo!  Cuckoo!"

"It works!,"  he concluded.  "You just need to get a new pendulum."

When we got home, I set it up on the wall with a make-shift pendulum (the broken handle of a measuring stick, a piece of twist wire and a rubber band).  It cuckooed nicely but not quite at the right time.  As a result, MyGirl posted this on her FB wall. 

mum is on her third clock that dings on the hour/half-hour...

the first one works perfectly and dings once each hour, with a working pendulum and tells the time, as a clock should (as Kuya RD says)

the second one is a bit whack .. it dings the number of times the hour is (i.e. 9 times at 9 o'clock) and once on the half-hour but one time it rang about 102 times

the third one was set up today and just ran 4 times at 7:22 pm and 12 times at 8:02 pm

me:  "our first one is my favourite because it rings at the correct time on the hour (give or take a minute)"

mum: "but it doesn't read out the time (ding the number of times the hour is)"

me: "that's fine!!"

mum : "no, it's not fine!!!!"

RD added a comment

me : "Add the fact that we have 4 clocks downstairs"

*Sits on the couch*

"Actually ... we have 5"

RD replied to his comment

'Hey, Mum, what's the time?"  I ask, as she checks her watch.

That was not the only thing RD had to say.  The other day, I told RD, "Maybe I can learn how to fix clocks when I retire."  He gave me one of those looks and said, "Mom, with your track record, I think you can only become a clock collector."

Anyway, after much deliberation, I decided to purchase a new pendulum from a clock store instead of going for second hand one from eBay or Amazon.  It cost almost as much as the clock itself but I wanted the clock to have a proper pendulum.  

The new pendulum arrived yesterday so now it is happily ticking away.

(I admit, I am a little cuckoo!  - the crazy clock lady)