My time got away from me this week and I remembered this silly thing I once wrote many years ago during the busy pre-season of Christmas when I was pressed for time:

I hit upon a blockbuster idea the other day as my husband flipped his way past an infomercial on television. You know – the kind of idea that could potentially send you on your way to millionaire status faster than you can say, “Is that your final answer?” After all, my husband’s idea of working for a living isn’t getting us there and Jean Pare has already written all of my cookbooks and the bank won’t let us put up a McDonald’s franchise in Vermilion without a down-payment. Huh, go figure.

“Let’s get a spot on the Home Shopping Network!” I cried. “We can sell time! Just think of it! We could sell an hour for five bucks, three hours for twenty! People would call in from all over the world asking for more time! They wouldn’t be able to get enough!”

My husband looked sideways at me like he was thinking I had spent too much time hovering over the glue bottle when last crafting with the kids, so I knew he wasn’t giving any credence to my grandiose scheme. Granted, there would be a packaging and delivery problem but those were things I would let him figure out. After all, radio and television stations are constantly selling time and at a much more exorbitant rate. Why couldn’t we?

The trouble was, it was already too late, what with the shipping and handling problems, to really capitalize on the Christmas market, when people would really be after our product. Not only would they be able to give the gift of time to so many people on their list, they indefinitely would buy a little extra time for themselves. Admit it: who doesn’t buy themselves one or two things when they’re buying all those nice gifts for other people? And who wouldn’t want another hour of vacation, or just more time to read a good book, have coffee with a friend, or even sleep a little longer?

I spent some more time thinking about the idea (don’t worry, I have plenty) and realized that no sooner would we begin our little venture than people would probably start taking the time! Without a patent (some Big Guy probably already has it) people would rapidly catch on that we don’t have a monopoly on time and pretty soon any schmuck would be throwing away time like they had a whole lifetime’s worth. And to top it off they would use it on fruitless things like watching infomercials on TV, reading blogs, and shoveling Alberta sidewalks. Right?

[Ah! Time! As I watch the COVID numbers ramp up and down and wait (patiently?) for a return to gatherings and vacations, I hope I am using whatever time I have wisely.]