and would that be daylight savings time?

Though it's possible I've never come right out and said it, I live on this island with a Boy. And while this Boy is technically of man age, most of his behavior places him so squarely in the boy category that it just feels plain silly to refer to him as anything else.

And while I understand that many "men" in their mid-twenties continue to exhibit signs of adolescent boy behavior, and that it might perhaps last well into their thirties and forties...I am also pretty sure that there is a certain characteristic particular to island boys that separate them from the rest.

Here's a for example: This evening, say, around 5:15, the Boy came bounding into the House from work. Now, on any normal evening, the Boy coming home from work in no way involves bounding. There's usually a lot of sitting, a lot of yawning, a lot of "I'm hungry aren't you hungry can't we eat dinner now even though only the elderly eat this early did I mention I'm hungry?" -ing.

So when there's bounding, it generally means one of two things. He's either hurrying to go surfing, or he's hurrying to go surfing.

Or also, maybe he wants to go surfing. Immediately.

I guess there really is some technical reason why the decision to go surfing must always happen spontaneously and be acted on with a sense of urgency comparable only to, I don't know, an impending natural disaster of some kind. I've been told (repeatedly) that it has something to do with quickly shifting wind directions from off-shore to on, or on-shore to off, or whether or not his wetsuit will magically evaporate when the clock strikes 12. One of those.

However, it all seems a little needlessly chaotic for my tastes, especially the part when he asks, as he did this afternoon, for a ride home when he's done.

The ride home is not the problem. I like rides. I like home. See? No problem.

The problem can be detected in the following exchange, which occurred as one of us threw around the entire contents of the kitchen closet looking for his booties -- yes I said booties, surf booties, wicked hot surf booties -- and the other one of us stood patiently in the background:

Me: Okay. So what time do you want me to pick you up?

Boy: I don't know. Around sunset, I guess.

Me: Sunset?

Boy: Yeah.

Me: So what time, though?

Boy: We'll probably get out of the water around when it starts to get dark.

Me: So. Okay. But. So when should I pick you up?

Boy Genius: I don't know! When it gets dark! When the sun sets! Leave the house when the sun starts setting, and by the time you get there, it will be dark!



Okay. I realize that when you live on an island, and you grow up frolicking in the dunes or catching frogs or whatever it is kids do when they're not watching TV like the rest of us, your sense of time has a little more of a sun-dial feel to it.

But I grew up in a city, I had a stoop, I did not catch frogs and I wouldn't know how to read a sun-dial if it projected big digital numbers in the sky.

Actually, that's not a bad idea. Because when it comes to time, call me crazy, but I like numbers! Numbers are pretty much all I need! Nice, solid numbers that leave no room for error based on cloud formations or subtle hues of "dark."

Numbers like 6:58, which, according to weather.com, is when the sun will be setting this evening, and therefore, you can be sure, reflects the exact time at which I will be rolling up to collect the Boy...booties, board and all.