Clocked

I own two antique clocks. Both were presents from my Dad. Up until about two months ago, one of them actually worked. That one, a mantel clock built in 1919, indeed sat on my mantel. It faithfully chimed, or rather bonged (it sounds really good), the hour until I wound it up one day and it decided to quit. I guess that since it's been running steadily since the end of World War I, its earned the right to stop. But I grew attached to this clock and liked being able to tell what time it was from anywhere in the house. You could hear the thing upstairs even, but it wasn't so loud that it kept me awake at night.

The other clock I own has been in my family for a long time. It's another mantel clock made out of red and black carved slate. It was made in France around the turn of the century. It's extremely cool and heavy. And it's never worked in the six years I've owned it. So on Friday, I decided I'd had enough of owning two non-working time pieces and took them to a clock repair shop --- one of the only ones in Dallas. I figured they'd oil them up get the both going and charge me maybe $50 a piece. Wrong. The guy said they both needed to be rebuilt because the bushings in them were bad. Hmmm. Maybe. They're both really old clocks. It's possible. So he says it would be $250 to work on the WWI clock and $300 for the French clock because it's more complicated. Yikes. I thought about it for three minutes and told him to go ahead and do the French clock. I couldn't afford to have them both fixed. Besides, the French clock is actually worth some cash. But it's not worth much to me if it doesn't tell time. He said it would take about three months until they could get to it. So at least I won't have to take that hit until October. Still I think it's worth it. Maybe.