A Little Reverse Thinking

Sign posted at the laundromat. “Free wash with every dry.”

Wait a minute... isn’t that backwards? After I’ve dried my clothes, why would I want to get them wet again? It seems that if I acted on this sign I’d be doing my laundry for the rest of my life. It must be a mistake... but it did get me thinking.

What if the world rotated on its axis the other way? What if clock hands went counter-clockwise? Or clockwise, as it would then be called? We’d be born old and die young. Wow, that’s an interesting thought. If that were true then we would enter this world in debt and die debt-free. That’s right, and as we grew younger so would our age, which means that all our wrinkles would slowly disappear. That would save us tons of money now spent on cosmetic surgery, anti-aging cream and hair replacement treatments.

And “miracles” would be happening every minute of every day. For instance, as we grew younger we’d be rising out of our wheelchairs. We’d be trading in our canes for Camaros, equipped with full surround sound stereo systems. Retirement would finally be something to look backwards to. Instead of receiving retirement watches we’d get mountain bikes! We could ride around all day long and still have enough energy left to watch late night TV. Our 401k’s would be spent on jeans, cheeseburgers, french fries and rock concerts.

If clocks went backwards then so would our cars. That means driving our cars backwards which would definitely lower our auto insurance payments because we’d probably drive a whole lot slower. And slower drivers have fewer accidents.

As we got younger, we’d slowly lose our material possessions too. That includes our homes, cars, riding mowers and all of our priceless valuables. By the time we finally pass away there’d be nothing for family members to inherit. No more family arguments over who gets what. We wouldn’t have to make out a will either because there would be nothing to will to anyone. That means no more lawyers filling up the yellow pages. Imagine... the yellow pages could never be used as a chair-lift again. Which reminds me... as we got younger, wouldn’t we get shorter too? That means we’d take up a lot less air space. The Airlines would let us fly for less, a lot less. Children fly for free don’t they?

We could rent videos and know right up front how a movie was going to end. That could save us hundreds of hours wasted on watching movies that have bad endings. And since our time here is limited, we ‘d want to be sure that we’re filling our final moments with movies that capture our imaginations. That eliminates about 90% of the movies we pay to rent now.

Gee, this reverse thinking is beginning to seem like something we could look forward to. But there must be a flip side to this and guess what... there is. You see, as we grew younger we’d have to spend our last few years living with our parents.

Let me refresh your memory on what that means.

It means back to curfews, eating your string beans, no talking, no fighting and no dirty socks on the floor.

It means consistently cleaning your room, no throwing stuff in the closet and making your bed every day.

It means no more privacy, no more TV and worst of all... having to share the bathroom with your sister. You’ll have no more control over the remote and have to spend the rest of your days sitting quietly all day long watching the Home Shopping channel.

It means doing your homework and doing detention for not doing your homework. Back to blackboards, chalk noises, bullies, milk money and trips to the principal’s office. There’s trash duty, lawn mowing duty, leaf raking duty and cleaning up dog duty.

I think it’s time to quickly turn the hands back to forward. You know, as the world really turns.

So with the earth rotating as it does what’s left to look forward to? Well... we can live out our final years tormenting our children instead of the other way around. We can control the remote and nap all day long while sitting comfortably in our Lazy-Boy chairs.

And remember those bullies? Well... we can sue them. And last, but best of all, we’d have the entire bathroom all to ourselves.

The more I think about it... as we grow older, clocks moving clockwise are worth looking forward to.