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The Gift It was a great gift for a student: a clipboard with a calculator. My sister-in-law received it as a free premium and gave it to my 11-year-old daughter. Not only did it have a calculator, but a display gave the time and date. It had an alarm feature and a stopwatch, too. The straightedge side was scored as a ruler. The only way it could have been improved was if it did homework or washed dishes. Programming electronic equipment is not so difficult for some segments of the population. Anyone who has asked a child to program the VCR knows this fact. Youngsters who can’t yet read can often set electronic clocks. I stay away from the VCR, but I decided to tackle the clipboard/calculator extravaganza. The back of the 14”x10” timing-clipboard-calculator box was loaded with high-tech instructions in tiny print. I believe therein lies the problem. Tiny print. Gobbledygook instructions. The brainiacs who write the instructions make the process difficult. The actual tasks are simple once you figure them out. There were three function keys on the calculator: Mode, Reset and Start/Stop. However, the sadist who wrote the instructions labeled those keys “A,” “B,” & “C” on the box, so I had to constantly refer to the diagram to see which key to hold down while tapping another. It took a few failed attempts, but I finally programmed the date and time. After 20 minutes of fiddling, I decided that my daughter didn’t need a stopwatch or an alarm. Shortly thereafter, we heard a small "beep” every hour on the hour. It reminded me of the first days of digital watches when wristwatches beeped at us every hour. Hmm. I didn’t program the hourly chime, did I? I took the box with the instructions and, just as it directed, I pressed “A” to get the time display, held down “C”, watched until the display had “dashes,” then pressed “A” again to disarm the hourly chime. It wasn’t that difficult. Not difficult, but not effective either. The next hour…beep. The following hour……beep. I followed the directions a second time and waited. Beep. I followed the directions a third time. Beep. Oh well, it wasn’t that loud. Weeks later, at 1:30 in the morning, I awoke to what I thought was the smoke alarm. Groggily, I sat up and listened more carefully. No, it wasn't the piercing shrill of the smoke alarm. It was softer. I rushed into my daughter's room, discovered her standing with dark eyes and furrowed brow, holding the ringing clipboard. The clipboard alarm decided to sound at 1:30 a.m., programmed by some unseen hand. The three words she uttered at 1:30 a.m. were not "I love you." "Break this thing," she commanded menacingly. She thrust it into my hands and returned to bed. Break it? I'd spent nearly a half-hour setting it! Instead, I tossed the clipboard into my closet and covered it with laundry and the alarm eventually stopped. The whole incident slipped my mind until the NEXT night at 1:30 a.m. when the alarm sounded again from my closet. My husband awoke. ”What’s that noise?” he asked. “A clipboard,” I answered as I rummaged through the laundry-strewn closet. “Oh,” he
replied, as if that answer made perfect sense. He went back to sleep. I'm trying to decide who gets it for Christmas.
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