CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: DOING THE TIME WARP WHILE GOING TO WORK

Like the song says, time may change me, but I can't change time.

There's a theory out there that time isn't just an arbitrary concept established by humans to mark the passage of days and hours, but an actual force, like gravity, that is inseparable from the physical space we inhabit.

The theory postulates that all time is actually occurring at once -- dinosaurs are roaming the earth while the Chinese are inventing gunpowder while barbarians are storming the gates and sacking Rome -- in different dimensions.

Sort of like boxcars on a speeding train, I guess. Self-contained, but moving together down the track.

So if you could just figure out how, you could jump from one "boxcar," or dimension or millennium, to the next.

If something catastrophic occurs, you could find yourself moving uncontrollably forward or backward through time.

Keep in mind my grasp of physics is based on Star Trek, which is, after all, science FICTION.

Here's my point: There's a very localized time warp (or if you prefer, distortion in the time/space continuum) between my apartment and the Southeast Missourian newsroom.

Specifically, it seems to be located from my bathroom, east on Independence and north on Lorimier to the parking lot.

Somebody call NASA.

I can't find any other explanation for the fact that I step into the shower, wash my hair and emerge a mind-boggling 40 minutes later.

Or the fact that I leave home 15 minutes before I'm due at the office and arrive 10 minutes late on what is a 10-minute drive if I get caught at every red light.

Although that last phenomenon could also be blamed on the city's new game of randomly shutting down major thoroughfares and detouring traffic.

They seem to be black topping streets, but I think it's part of a larger, covert experiment to see how much stress the average American motorist can withstand.

The work on Independence and Broadway is just the tip of the iceberg.

The real test is out on the interstates, where they post those "right lane closed" signs, but everything's wide open for the next 20 miles until CRASH!!! 400 vehicles converge on a 60-foot strip of pavement in the far left lane.

One day, traumatized by the sight of too many orange barrels clustered on the shoulder of the highway, a motorist will just snap and start shooting at people from an overpass.

Traffic will, of course, be backed up for hours.

Free-floating paranoia aside and the Rolling Stones notwithstanding, ti-i-i-me ain't on my side.

My alarm clock, a 12-year-old key-wound timepiece, bit the dust the other morning.

They just don't make 'em like they used to.

I realized it had ceased to function when I woke up at 8:15, about 15 minutes before I'm usually at work.

It's moments like that when you realize that, arbitrary or not, time flies, marches on, waits for no man ... pick your cliche.

And no matter what dimension you're in and whether or not the alarm works, somewhere a clock is ticking and there's no way to reverse it.

Maybe if I drive backwards down Independence. ...

~Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.