Five Minute Chunks - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin

Not so long ago, I had a little fun in this column space about living my life five minutes at a time; drawing parallels to The Fast and Furious movies and their motto of living life one quarter-mile at a time, except for something as mundane as the day-to-day business of being a parent to little kids.

 

The column told the story about the most important parenting tool - certainly the one with the most authority - in our arsenal is the timer on our smartphones. Don’t want to come home from the park? Don’t want to stop playing with your Barbies? Don’t want to get dressed or have a bath just yet? Not quite hungry enough for dinner? There’s an app for that and it’s the timer on your phone. You set a five-minute timer and not only does it get things moving at a time that has been mutually-agreed-upon, but there’s also no room for debate. When the timer’s siren goes off, it goes off. It’s been five minutes; there’s no chicanery, manipulation, extensions, short-cuts. Five minutes is five minutes everywhere.

 

The other night, as I was driving back to Blyth from Goderich after a late-night dinner pick-up and grocery run, I realized that, because of forces beyond my control, I pretty much have my conversations five minutes at a time. And while it has something to do with my phone, it isn’t the timer in this scenario.

 

To be clear, it is the year 2025 - you weren’t trying to hang a clock before slipping and falling, hitting your head on the toilet, subsequently leading to your invention of the flux capacitor. Having said that, I am about to write a column about cell phone reception. This is perhaps notable and sad that, despite the advancement of just about everything, I still drop a call at least three times on a drive from Goderich to Blyth or vice versa.

 

So, leaving Goderich for Blyth like I did on Sunday night, you make a point not to start your call until after the Orchard Line turn-off from Highway 8, more or less. You will drop a call there. From there, you’ve started your call and you have about five minutes until you’ll drop it again around the bend in Benmiller. Once you’ve reconnected, you have five minutes until the big valley along Londesboro Road as you go over the bridge and over the Maitland River. You will, again, lose a call there, pretty much no matter the conditions. 

 

From there, you’re mostly home free to Blyth, though I have dropped calls between Londesborough and Blyth on occasion. There it is. It’s like Elon Musk’s time management strategy of sectioning out five-minute blocks, except you’re a Huron County resident trying to maintain a phone call, rather than a drug-addled goblin who can’t control his bladder. 

 

I already hear you. You’re saying, “Oy, Loughlin - what about taking Blyth Road?” I’ll meet you at the intersection of “Shut” and “Up” to detail the ways that that route is no better in terms of reception, so zip it.

 

As I’ve covered Huron County Council for years and years, watching with interest as this initiative or that seeks to improve connectivity with fibre optic cable, towers being installed and last miles being reached, the fact remains that a simple man making a simple phone call on a drive between two of Huron County’s more populous communities runs the risk of turning it into a conversation that’s eerily reminiscent of a high school play that makes use of vignettes.

 

Not that I have any influence, but if I did, I’d suggest that some attention perhaps be paid to the ability to make a phone call in Huron County that lasts until two people say goodbye to one another. Not asking the world here.