Wednesday, September 9, 2009

zero o'clock am

Yesterday I took a quick trip to a city north of us, just for the day.

It was a role reversal for Matt and me. He does the 'quick one or two day trip' a few times each semester while I hold down the fort back at home. This time it was my turn to fly, and his turn to chase kids!

All went smoothly and I enjoyed my time there a lot. It was a very different day from what I am used to -

The not so fun part was discovering that my flight home was delayed about two hours and I didn't land here until "zero o'clock am". That's midnight, for those of you with little experience deciphering poor English translations.

All the announcements on domestic flights are translated into English, but it is usually nearly impossible to understand. The late hour, the poor pronunciation and the 'zero o'clock am' had me baffled for a moment.... I looked at my watch. "oh, midnight, she means that it is midnight".

I probably would have thought it was funny. But I am not easily amused when sitting on a runway at midnight.

Oh, and for those of you curious as to whether or not I've discovered any additional examples of "simplification" or "complexification".... the short answer is: we had no running water for a significant chunk of our day.

What do you think? Is cutting off the water for an apartment complex an attempt at simplification or complexification?

You know my vote.

3 comments:

Mom said...

I remember seeing a zero o'clock posting on an airline board before and being puzzled for a few seconds about what time that was. However, it does kinda make sense - it certainly reduces confusion with 12 noon for those of us who use a 12 hour clock. (The military have the best solution - a 24 hour clock but I always have to stop and subtract to figure out the pm hours!) The bad news is that you were still not home at zero o'clock! Hope you next one day trip is less stressful and that Matt enjoyed his day with the kids. Love you!

Paul said...

You forgot to mention the yummy food. I know just how very very good China Eastern airplane food is too. It is sooo gooood. I'll bet you had seconds too.

love you Dad

Julie Redfern said...

Even after all the complexification of the traveling did you have a good time? How wonderful that Matt watched all 3 kiddos so you could have some alone time! love you guys, Julie