Thursday, August 14, 2008

Klingon Clock

There is an episode of Star Trek: TNG ("Ethics", season 5) in which Worf undergoes an experimental and dangerous surgery to replace his entire spine, which had been damaged in an accident leaving him paralyzed, with a brand new replica spine created in the lab. Unfortunately, removing a spine and sticking in a new one is no walk in the park and he dies on the table. But shortly thereafter, when the counselor goes to inform his young son of his death, Worf miraculously comes back to life. This is because Worf is a Klingon, and his physiology has built in redundancies that back up all his systems, including neural function. Klingons need this because as warriors and a generally angry race, they have a tendency to get stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, impaled, etc. on a pretty frequent basis. Without it, they would probably all die in their youth and have no ability to propagate the species. But that's not really my point.

My point is that I think my alarm clock may be a Klingon. Now I realize this may seem far fetched. My clock is not prepared for battle, in fact it is quite peace loving. There is also the somewhat minor point that alarm clocks are inanimate which may disqualify them from being considered a part of a humanoid alien species. But Klingons are down with meditation, much like my clock, and it is also capable of spontaneous regeneration.

Much like Worf, my clock was recently faced with a catastrophic injury. While I was away in Baltimore, the storm of the century hit Chicago, sending down as many bolts of lightning in a couple of hours as the area normally receives over 6 months. Seriously. Lance Berkman actually ran off the field in the middle of a play during the Cubs/Astros game amid almost constant lighting. My alarm clock, being plugged into the wall, got hit with a huge power surge and promptly died. Also like Worf, my clock underwent experimental "surgery" when I attempted to get it to run on batteries in the hope that it was just the electrical cord that was damaged. No luck. My dead clock sat on my night table, not chiming and not telling me the time.

For three days.

Until two days ago around midnight when I heard from inside the closed lid the sound of a chime tuned to E. I quickly opened the lid to discover that my alarm clock was on and flashing 12:00, having apparently regenerated itself from its redundant Klingon anatomy. It is obvious that there can be no other logical explanation. From now on I will try to always show honor and courage in front of my clock and try very hard not to piss it off.

QAPLA'!

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