Dregs of my childhood float to the surface

[carose59]

I Believe In The Forgiveness Of Sin And The Redemption Of Ignorance.*

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Back when I was a small child, I learned a song. It went like this:

"I've got sixpence,
Jolly, jolly sixpence,
I've got sixpence
to last me all my life.
I've got sixpence to spend
And sixpence to lend
And sixpence to send home to my wife,
Poor wife."

Now, even as a seven year old, I knew the arithmetic of this song was badly skewed. Either that, or the word "and" should be replaced by "or." Because obviously if you only have six pence, you can't spend sixpence, lend sixpence , and send sixpence home, because that would take eighteen pence, which, we've established, you don't have.

(Yes, I have always been like this.)

I tried working it out by singing two pence, because with sixpence you could do all three of those things, only reducing the number of pence spent, lent, and sent home to two each.

The problem is, the next verse goes,
"I've got tuppence,
Jolly, jolly tuppence,
I've got tuppence
to last me all my life.
I've got tuppence to spend
And tuppence to lend
And tuppence to send home to my wife,
Poor wife."

Well. This was just—this was just— There was nothing I could do for this song! Because two doesn't divide by three evenly, and nobody was going to sing. "I've got .66666667 pence to spend and .66666667 to lend and .666666666 to send home to my wife, poor wife."

And then came the final verse.

"I've got no pence,
Jolly, jolly no pence,
I've got no pence
to last me all my life.
I've got no pence to spend
And no pence to lend
And no pence to send home to my wife,
Poor wife."

Now, arithmetically this works just fine, but it hardly seemed like something to sing about. Even having sixpence didn't seem like a singing matter, not if it was supposed to last you all your life. I knew I would need more than that to keep up with buying Peanuts books and Liddle Kiddles. Singing about having no money made no sense.

I'm now fifty-nine years old and I understand the song. It's not about money or arithmetic, it's about the existential experience of how we're unable to properly manage our expectations.

Last night I went to bed early because life is hard this time of year. I set my alarm for six—which would have given me nine hours of sleep. Only Meg, my little occasion of sin, was cuddling with me under the covers, and the air was that wonderful early-summer-morning chilly, and I was too contented to get out of bed. So we snuggled for half an hour or so. That still got me up a half an hour earlier than I normally get up on a good day.

And that was great, because I had things I wanted to get done: riding my bike extra long; hitting the grocery; cleaning out the fridge; do a little writing.

And this is where the song comes in, and the existential experience of badly-managed expectations. Because each of those things I listed would take an extra half hour or so. To do all of them, I would need not just thirty extra minutes, but two extra hours.

Why, when they taught us this song, didn't they tell us that while our brains might work like this, it's not how time works?


*Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.