I’m always amused when I pick up my prescriptions from CVS. They put the first two letters of your last name in the upper corner of the label on the bag. Like this:

Well, right back at you, CVS!

I’ve been trying to think up any other funny combinations that might occur, but I’m coming up dry. There’s always BS but I can’t think of any name that starts with those two letters.

The little doohicky that slides over the end of the watch band broke first. I replaced it with an elastic hair tie wrapped around the band four times because I am clever and cheap and have long hair. A week later I rolled over in my sleep and the watch went flying off my wrist, face first into the wall. The wristband had broken through and through, so there was no fixing this. The wristwatch is all one piece, so I couldn’t buy a replacement band. Tape wouldn’t hold and I couldn’t meld the plastic back together with laser vision because I am not Superman. (Not that I would tell you if I were.)

This means that this week I haven’t been wearing a watch for the first time this century (and probably a good 10 years before that too). Instead, I’ve been experiencing time in the way most human beings experienced time before Timex, fluid and slightly unknowable instead of chopped into identical, measurable pieces. What time is it? I don’t precisely know, but I can guess within an error margin of plus or minus two hours.

The fact that there is an official time agreed upon by most of humanity is a relatively new phenomena. As I understand it, synched time zones only arrived with the railroads. It was hard to make up schedules of arrival and departure times if every city had their own time, so we all got down with Greenwich Mean Time. Before then, your schedule probably had more to do with sunrise, sunset and noon than it did with the tick, tick, ticking of a machine. Because really, when the power goes out it’s hard to do anything after sunset. Candles are not that bright, y’all.

My watch has been such a part of me that I was unaware of how much it affects my perception of time. I stayed up late reading a book last week and wondered if it was time for me to go to bed or not. I looked at my wrist for the time and my carpal bones were completely unhelpful. How late was it? How late did it feel? Should I go to bed, or was it still too early for that? I wasn’t that tired, but if I wanted to at least attempt to keep my body on a routine schedule, I should try to go to sleep at a certain time. I wasn’t used to making this decision by listening to my body instead of knowing how many minutes past midnight it was. If I woke up in the middle of the night, I’d feel totally disoriented if I couldn’t see what time it was. How would I know how many hours I had left to sleep? How could people live with that kind of uncertainty?!

Another night I was watching a TV show (which I was able to watch at the right time because I checked the clock on my computer). At one of the commercial breaks I tried to check the time to see how long we had left to wrap up the plot. Twenty minutes? Thirty? I didn’t know! I had to just go with it, not knowing exactly what act we were in and how long it would take for that lady to crash onto the top of a taxi like she did at the beginning before we flashed back.

I also depend on my watch to track my hours when I work on a client’s project. You can’t bill by the hour if you don’t know the hour. I found myself trying to look at my wrist for the date and the time whenever I stopped or started because I couldn’t be bothered to use a couple neurons in my brain to REMEMBER the date. I usually look at my watch each time instead of committing it to memory. I mean, it changes every day, right? Why bother?

Of course, some things I don’t need a watch to remember. All of these things have to do with cats. Cats know when it’s six o’clock in the morning because that’s when it’s time for them to scratch at the door or walk on your face to remind you to feed them, bitch, NOW! And I know it’s after nine o’clock at night as I write this, because that’s the block of time that has been set aside for cuddling kitties. The claws tearing at my sweater are letting me know how late I am for my appointment with the couch. Cats don’t need wristwatches. They are organic alarm clocks.

While there is some appeal to viewing time as malleable, there’s no way I’d ever get rid of the way we measure time. I like to arrive at appointments at the same moment someone is expecting me to be there. I like to know when my TV shows are broadcast so I can actually watch them. Different cultures have different views on punctuality though. I believe that in some countries you can show up an hour late to something and it’s not really a big deal.

I would not last long in these countries.

All of which is to say time is kind of weird, eh? (And I’m not even getting into what happens to it when you travel near the speed of light.) I must admit that I like my time split into seconds and grouped into minutes. There is a part of me that thinks I should be more Harlequin and less Ticktockman, but there is another part of me that says, “OMG, do you know what time it is?! It’s time to get a new watch!!”

So I did. Just in time.

Chapel Hill and Charlotte are not close to one another, unless you’re comparing the distance between them within the scope of entire universe. In that case they are close, but that doesn’t matter much because I am a cosmic speck in comparison to the size of the universe and it takes this speck two and a half hours to drive between the two cities. I was heading to Charlotte for an event at their performing arts center, but it’s my general rule that I should spend at least as much time in a city as I spend driving there and back, so I decided to fulfill a life-long dream that day and go on a Segway tour. (Actually, Segways have only been around for ten years, so let’s call it a decade-long dream.)

Segway tours are offered in most major American cities. I signed up for the basic tour at Charlotte NC Tours which also offers bike tours and walking tours of Charlotte. The other members of my tour group were a mother and father with a teenage son and daughter. The kids were probably half my age, literally, which made me realize that if they were blogging this I would be referred to as the overweight, middle-aged woman on their tour. Huh. Self-identity vs. public identity battle it out once again. KA-POW! SMASH!

The tour started with 20-30 minutes of training. First the instructor demonstrated the basic driving skills, then each person got one-on-one practice with the guide. The kids made it look as easy as riding a bike. I made it look as easy as riding a unicycle. Stepping on a Segway feels like stepping onto the center of a teeter-totter. If you lean backward the Segway goes backward, and if you lean forward the Segway goes forward. (Crazy, I know.) If your weight is evenly distributed forward and backward, the Segway stays put. When stepping onto the machine for the first time, I didn’t know precisely where the fulcrum was, so I wibble-wobbled and felt like I might fall off, though I didn’t. I’m not sure if that’s because of the machine’s design or because the guide was holding onto the machine like I was a kid who had just ditched her training wheels.

After some practice I felt ok on the device, though definitely not a master. That, of course, is why I was chosen to be the person immediately behind the tour guide in our row of ducklings. That was so I wouldn’t fall behind the pack and get lost or fall down a sewer hole unnoticed. It reminded me of that time I was the worst player when I took tennis lessons. Or that time I kept falling on my ass when I took skiing lessons. I really can’t blame the kids for picking me last for Dodge Ball. I would have picked me last too.

First we went across the street to the Nascar Hall of Fame which has a big, open patio perfect for practicing. The patio was also empty, which eliminated the chance of any Segway vs. pedestrian battles. It might be fun to have a Segway jousting tournament though. I hear they have Segway polo.

My biggest handling problem came when I could see a small bump in my path. My first instinct in that situation is to slow down, but the best thing to do is to maintain speed so you have the momentum to continue over it. The Segway is a full-body machine though, so even though my head knew to keep going, my body instinctually leaned back to brace for the hit, which slowed down the device. Thankfully there weren’t too many bumps on the tour. I was amazed that we were able to go everywhere on roads and sidewalks without hitting a single curb. I suppose I have the Americans with Disabilities Act to thank for that. Thanks, Americans with disabilities!

Our flock of Segways was a bit of a spectacle. Random people would wave or gawk at us as we revved by. One lady in a car even stopped and asked the tour guide for directions. I guess if you’re a tour guide you’re assumed to be a human GPS. We traveled farther on the Segways than I could have comfortably walked, however my feet hurt a lot more than I expected. I was too afraid to get off the Segway and get back on, even though the guide would have assisted me. My feet hurt because it was harder to shift my weight back and forth on each leg like I would have if I was just standing on a sidewalk. Any movement had an effect on the Segway and I didn’t feel secure enough in my skills to shift my weight that much. I wished I had worn my athletic shoes which have good padding and support.

One downside of the tour was that I spent a lot of time focusing on the sidewalk in front of me trying to avoid a wreck instead of looking at the buildings around me, which was, you know, the other reason I was on this tour. I also felt an unexpected awkwardness when our flock zipped past two different guys in motorized wheel chairs. It felt like we were saying, “Hey, there! I’m riding around on a motorized device for shits and giggles, but you’re riding around on one because you have no other choice. Have a nice day! Vrrrooom, Vrrrooom!”

As for Charlotte itself, the city is lovely. It reminded me of Indianapolis because they both have grid layouts and they’ve both focused on redeveloping their downtown areas in the past decade. There were even some of the same restaurants like Rock Bottom Brewery and McCormick & Schmick’s.

I’d definitely recommend a Segway tour to others, but I’d also make them aware that it’s slightly more physical than it looks. A Segway is not a car you drive around standing up. There is physicality involved. You need to be able to stand up for over an hour with only a few breaks, if any. I believe there’s also a recommended weight limit on the Segway of 260 pounds. No one weighed me before the tour, but I’d guess that if you’re significantly over this limit they might not let your ride. Segways cost at least $5000 each, so I doubt the tour owners want to push their expensive investments too far past the recommended limits.

I have no idea how long it would have taken to drive a Segway from Charlotte to Chapel Hill, but I’m certain my feet would have been numb by the time I arrived and the battery probably would have died before I reached Greensboro. I drove back in my car instead.

I am a restauranteur! Who knew? If I am ever in Brussels I will be sure to check out my restaurant. Between this and Jennette’s Pier I feel like a multi-national real estate baron!

Thanks to Jill for sending this photo. I love the crown-shaped napkin holder. They’ve even got a website, though obviously not at PastaQueen.com

Disneyland for cats would be a box factory.

In positive news, it’s been 97 days since Java Bean broke a glass! Yay, Java Bean! Those Glassbreakers Anonymous meetings must be working. I, however, have broken, um, two glasses in that time period. Bad, Jennette! Bad, bad, bad! I shattered each one while washing them in the sink. In both bouts of Plate vs. Glass the plate has been the winner. Good thing I’ve got a ton of Bad, Bath, and Beyond coupons for 20% off.

Lest I show favoritism, Office Krupke has killed six crickets this month. Six! Predators make the best pets.