Norm Stories From Everyday Life: Timekeeping

Back to the Norm stories.

I was thinking about all the other stories about life with Norm that are worth mentioning. I then realized that some of the most interesting things about Norm involved everyday life. This is an example of something that always made me wonder exactly how much of my everyday conversation he understood. If I got home in the evening before suppertime, and it was not quite suppertime. Or if I was sitting around at home and Norm thought it was time for the evening walk and I thought we should wait a bit for the Las Vegas heat to cool down. Norm would come over to where I was sitting, tail wagging, a big ol' smile and an enthusiastic look. He never would bark when he did this. Sometimes it would be close enough to the scheduled time that I would feed him or harness him up for his walk a little ahead of schedule.

But, sometimes, often, I said "It's too early. 15 minutes." Usually I would flash 10 fingers and another five. To signify "15." Think Norm didn't understand the concept of 15 minutes? Norm then would immediately walk away, tail no longer wagging. Many times -- way too many times to be a coincidence -- in fact, you could even say this happened "usually" -- he would come back, smiling, tail wagging after about 12 or 13 minutes later. Never sooner than that. Never. (Well, maybe there were a couple of times in 13 years he came back after five minutes, but only a couple.) I will concede that his timekeeping was not perfect. I will grant you that. He was off by a minute or three. But considering that he didn't wear a watch or carry a cellphone, I would call his timekeeping was impressive.

Yet another example of what I've said many times before. Norm was scary smart.