top of page
Writer's pictureStand-Up Comedy Historian

A Plea for Digital Clocks

Here's another old SUCH writing sample.


This time it's my essay on a topic that has plagued my mind since middle school: Why do we still use analog clocks?


The Simpsons future episode has the right idea


So for my seventh grade Educational Records Bureau (ERB) writing assessment, I decided to put to paper all my thoughts on how unnecessary clocks with hands are now at the turn of the 21st century.


Fun fact: I wrote this essay on 3/15/96, which is exactly 20 years before I gave birth to my son Logan. Crazy!


The writing prompt


My essay in cursive, another stupid thing no one needs to learn in this century aside from signing your name—yes, I have a LOT of opinions on this topic haha


Suppose that your school has been given a large gift of money for a school improvement. Choose one improvement that you would recommend. This could be to improve the building, to add a new course, to fund an activity, or for any other school-related purpose. Write a composition giving reasons to support your choice and elaborate your reasons.

Da-da. The annoying sound of our "bell" at school. Everyone hates it, especially me. I started to consider what if we had a digital clock. Then I decided that that would be great at any school.


If we had a digital clock instead of a two-handed clock, everyone would enjoy school a great deal more. For instance, it would be very simple to read the clocks. If you are identical to me and you can't tell time extremely well, it would be much easier to tell people what time it is. Instead of hesitating to say it's a quarter to nine and waiting so long people get mad at you, you can just say it is 8:45. I have done this so many times, I'm an expert.


Bo Burnham might like using those phrases in The Future, but I despise them—just say 9:45 and 12:45!


If the clock broke, as it usually does here, we could rig it up to a button connected to the principal's digital watch somehow and you could fix all the clocks. Let's say that the digital clocks are all off by three hours. All you would have to do is press the button three times and all of the clocks are fixed.


Little kids would be very thankful if the schools had digital clocks. They wouldn't have to learn the quarter 'til's, the quarter of's, and the other clock words. They could just say 9:45, 10:15, 11:30, or 12. With digital clocks teachers wouldn't have to teach the kids how to read clocks, and could go straight to something more important.


As I said in the beginning, da-da is annoying. We could have an alarm (or what they call a bell), that could actually sound like a bell or go "Get out of here!," at the end of the day. So why don't we put the money into digital clocks. Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking why should we have digital clocks when everyone already has them on their wrists. Well, I think that in the year 2000 you won't see any two-handed clocks anywhere. So why don't we be the first school to have digital clocks!



Kommentare


bottom of page