The original Twilight Zone series had a timely episode involving a kind of a stopwatch: Click the stem, and all time stops. Except you. Maybe you're already hearing the tell-tale series music and its four-note loop.
40-year-old Patrick McNulty realized the stopwatch offered many intriguing possibilities, if its secrets could be unwound. In the teleplay by series creator Rod Serling, the [spoiler alert] watch is dropped and broken -- forever stranding McNulty in time.
Except for that being-stranded-in-time part, I could have long used a stopwatch like that. (You too?) It sure would have shrunk down those 75-hour weeks to size.
Talk about mandatory over-employment meted out onto a small, salaried plate! Trying to eat faster was the only solution to keep up with the kitchen -- aside from tossing up one's hands and walking out. Then, a magical idea -- like Alice in Wonderland, but in stopwatch clicks, not pills: One click makes your work seem to go faster, and another click finds you relaxing at home.
Not quite as perfect as having a "duplicate you" to send off to work in your place each day, but still pretty good. To quote from another fine Zone episode, there would finally be "time enough at last."
It's a nice pipe dream, especially as we all try to play Beat The Clock, or at least, try to not get the decompression bends or too many cramps from immersion into the time stream and commuting in the daily depths, trying to squeeze in more life for the time that we have. And for the time we have left.
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