Smithereens.
That’s exactly what I thought the moment I picked it up. This morning, you see, I was putting my Apple Watch on my wrist. Standing at the kitchen island, all by myself, in the absolute quiet of the early, early hours. Somehow, by way of the Mischievous Sprites, the watch flew from my hand and landed face down on the ceramic tile on our kitchen floor.
I heard the splat and the crickety-crack.
I leaned down and turned it over. There it was. As The Rolling Stones would say…. “Shattered.”
Gone. But not forgotten.
The thing was blown to smithereens.
Yet. Smithereens is a good word. It has a nice ring to it, probably originating from the Irish word, smidiríní, meaning fragment. That is the English definition too. Fragments. Bits.
Blown to smithereens.
For some reason, the word reminds me of the Smothers Brothers. Yes, that duo who appeared on television, during the 1950s and 60s. Not so much Tom, but the older one, Dick. They had their own shown, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
It might be because of the one episode which I must have seen on a rerun at some time. The Smothers Brothers invited The Who on to the show in 1967, as a musical guest. At the end of their performance, they always destroyed their instruments. This appearance was no different. They played “My Generation” and then the smash-up began.
On this episode, the song would end with guitarist Pete Townshend grabbing Tommy’s guitar and smashing it. Somehow, I remember my Mom saying, “Oh. That is terrible.” She was aghast. Anyway.
They had a mishap in all of that. They always used additional mild explosives for light pyrotechnic effects. They put a small amount of explosive in the little cannon that Keith Moon kept in his bass drum. But it didn’t go off during the rehearsal. Moon didn’t know this. Then, a stage hand had added another explosive before the taping. But it goes on. Still later, Moon added another charge. Now there were three, when there should have been one. When Keith Moon set it off, the explosion was so intense that a piece of cymbal shrapnel cut into Moon’s arm. He yowled. You could hear him moaning in pain toward the end of the piece.
Pete Townshend, was right in front of the drum. His hair caught sparky-fire, and he had to put himself out, while Tommy Smothers looked on. Mouth agape. Shocked. That explosion allegedly contributed heavily to Townshend’s long-term hearing loss.
Anyway, the set was blown to smithereens.
More than anything, I think of good old Yosemite Sam, who used to say things, like, “Ya better say your prayers, ya flea-bitten varmint … I’m-a-gonna blow ya to smithereenies!”
Yosemite. Sam. I loved him. That was before I learned the truth about guns. He was always shooting off his guns. And blowing things up.
To smithereens.
So there it is. I smashed my watch first thing this morning.
I guess you could say, I was killing time.
Or perhaps it was the fact that time flies.
In this case, all over my kitchen floor.
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“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”
― Anthony G. Oettinger
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“How did it get so late so soon?”
― Dr. Seuss
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“Time is an illusion.”
― Albert Einstein
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