12:34

I'm pretty sure we all have unconscious tendencies. Whether it's shaking your leg without noticing, or biting your nails, or eating the eraser off your pencil—there's really nothing odd or out of place about any of it and it's never really given a second thought.

That is, until an odd pattern starts arising from those tendencies.

My unconscious tendencies revolve around clicking things. Buttons, clasps and clicker pens are a few examples. When I got my iPhone for the first time, pressing the lock button became one of those things I'd find myself clicking just for the heck of it. As time went by, since I easily lose track of time while I'm occupied, I'd glance at the clock and lock the phone.

It wasn't until six months ago that I started noticing a pattern.

About 4 times a week, I would click the iPhone's lock button, check the time and it would be the time in the picture above—12:34. This can obviously only happen twice a day, but there would be days where I'd see both 12:34 PM and 12:34 AM. It was odd at first, but I just thought of it as a coincidence.

Then the number of occurrences jumped to 6-8 times a week. Again, note that this can only happen at a maximum of 14 times in a week, so to have this happen more than 50% of the time was a bit alarming. Was my body clock making sure that I checked the time at that very moment? What made matters a bit freakier was the fact that if I attempted to keep myself away from my phone and miss one, I'd see the next one somewhere else—on my computer monitor for example or on the side of a building.

At points throughout this whole story, I felt I had some kind of control over this. Until today.

I went to lunch today with some co-workers from one of my contracts, I was first to the door so I held it and let them go in first. I came in behind them and waited for them to order. I did the same and followed them to our table to wait for our food. We sat there talking for about 3 minutes when I felt the urge to remember what number my order was. I looked down at my receipt and saw this:

I was freaked out.

I had already told my co-workers that I had been experiencing these weird time issues, so when I slipped the receipt towards them, they took a good look at my face and started laughing. One of them recommended that I make sure I'm not crossing the street when the click strikes 12:34. I agreed, but said that with my luck I'd be struck by lightning instead.

So there you have it. There's a New Year's resolution for me, avoid 12:34. But like most resolutions, I'll be sure to break that unintentionally.

(Maybe now that I've blogged about it—it'll stop. D:)

Well at any rate, Happy New Year everybody!