Ahead of his time

My husband has always been ahead of his time.

“When is Daylight Savings Time?” my husband grumbled.

I don't know why he asks me.

“No, I'm serious. When is it?”

For 12 years, this has been our semi-annual fight, and my response is always the same.

First, I must correct his grammar:

“It's daylight SAVING time. There's no S.”

“Whatever … When is it?”

Then I correct his usage:

“It's in the spring.”

“Fine! … Then when do we turn the clocks ahead?

“In the spring.”

“But then we'd gain an hour.”

“Sure. We gain an hour of daylight but lose an hour of sleep. In the fall, we get that hour of sleep back.”

He shoots me a look that says what I am doing is the mental equivalent of pulling the wings off of flies or burning ants with a magnifying glass. Torture.

“You know what I mean. When do we turn the clocks back?”

“Yes, yes. I know. We return to Eastern Standard Time the first weekend in November. … Wanna know how I know?

“How do you know?”

“I Googled it on this thing in my pocket called a smartphone. … It looks surprisingly like yours only my case is much cooler.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny.”

Twelve years. Seems like a long time when you're an outsider looking in.

For me, it seems like yesterday.

I remember the torrential rains that visited the night before. The elation of a clear morning followed by the forehead-slapping realization that we would welcome our guests to our outdoor wedding in a field of ragweed. Everywhere we turned, we faced the potential for allergen disaster.

He doesn't remember it that way.

He was too busy looking for his car keys.

These weren't keys to just any vehicle, mind you. Nooooo.

He was frantically searching for the keys to our “get-away” car: A 1974 Lincoln Mark IV hardtop that had been painted purple and accented with metallic-gold stencils of poisonous flora and fauna. It also had orange, matted shag carpeting that smelled of paint-thinner and cigar smoke.

It got nine miles a gallon. It would have cost us $1.64 to get from the wedding to the reception.

Holy moly was gas cheap when we got hitched.

Not the point.

The most miraculous thing, besides the cost of petrol, was that I did NOT hide the keys to that monstrosity.

My sincerest affirmation of this amazing fact, however, did little to stop his mind from weaving all of his last-minutes of bachelorhood thoughts into a giant conspiracy-theory hat.

Not that he would have held it against me, even if he hadn't found the keys later on that week in the laundry, accidentally left in the pocket of a pair of jeans.

Thing is … time doesn't fly in his world, it seems to go backward.

I know this now, because as we were both busy almost forgetting this particular anniversary, we had both tried to pull together last-minute, year-appropriate gifts.

I had gotten him a snarky t-shirt.

He commemorated the occasion a few days later by buying table linens, “the traditional gift of that particular anniversary,” he explained.

“Guess how I knew what it was?”

“You Googled 13.”

“How'd you guess?”

“We've only been married 12 years. When I Googled, it came up silk or pearl. I went with snarky pearls of wisdom. ...

You really are ahead of our time.”