Traveling without Lemons

I am annoyed with people online today.  I won’t get into what’s annoying me this afternoon, but this morning I posted a snide comment on a design blog about this clock, and was taken to task for finding the whole concept ludicrous.

If you didn’t follow the link, you’re missing out on an Eco-Friendly Chronometer that literally runs on itself!  It’s what’s next in classic timepieces!

It’s a small clock that is powered by water and lemon juice.  It runs 6-8 weeks on water and lemon juice.

I don’t see that the clock’s website itself is billing it as a travel clock, but the design blog referred to it as such.

And, as such, I think it’s an insane proposition made by people who either don’t travel, or have no grip on reality.

First of all, it doesn’t run on itself; it runs on water and lemon juice.  And you can’t take it in your suitcase filled with water and lemon juice, so you have to empty it and then refill it at your destination.

With lemon juice.  Which is so easy to procure!  When I asked, on the blog, where I was supposed to get lemon juice on the road, another commenter told me, “Lemons.”

(Asshole.)

Yes, lemons!  Of course!  How silly of me not to realize that, upon landing at my destination after hours of flying and cabs and hotel check-in lines and hauling luggage, I should just pop out and grab myself a lemon or two at the nearest organic market.

Then what?  A knife?  A cutting board?  Should I just squeeze the lemon right into the clock?  How much lemon juice should I use?  Do I now need a measuring cup?  What about the pulp and seeds- is that a problem?  Will the acid eventually wear away the inside of the plastic clock?  How often will I have to rinse it out, because that little spout thing looks like it will be hard to use with a plastic bottle brush.

Not to mention that I personally live in a town with hard water.  I am pretty sure that clock would start to show the signs of hard water damage after a few months.

After being flamed at the blog, and then (of course) spitting off an irritated response with a condensed version of these points, I felt bad and decided to be empathetic.

I mean, let’s just say you do need a traveling alarm clock.  The one you had is broken, let’s say.  Let’s say that, although you could buy a replacement travel clock PLUS rechargeable batteries for the $16 that this one costs, you want to be eco-conscious.  And you don’t want to use your cell phone alarm.  And you don’t want to use the clock in your hotel room.  Or the wake-up service at the hotel.  And you don’t, for whatever reason, want to buy a solar-powered clock.

Yes, let’s just put ourselves in those shoes.

The clock is cute.  And $16 isn’t terribly expensive for an ostensibly green piece of electronics.  The solar clock will run you $30 on Amazon.  (Though, of course, we aren’t taking into account the cost of lemons over the life of the clock.)

But then this empathy led me to try to imagine the kind of person who would consider this a reasonable excuse for a travel clock.

I have come to the conclusion that this kind of person seems like a real pain in the ass to know or be around, and if I ever had to travel with this person, I would shove a pencil into my eye.  Can you imagine sharing a cab with a colleague who, upon finally getting a cab in an unfamiliar city, suggests that the first thing s/he will do in this new city is find a lemon?  To use in an alarm clock?

I wonder if I’m going to get banned from that blog now.

I think I’ve decided that I’m ok with that.