Fritz called to say he forgot to give me his column and I drove by his place to pick it up.

All the way to work I kept thinking how early everything looked. The light wasn’t right. I was surprised to see I was the first person at Locus. No other cars there except for Charlie’s green Toyota. I could even bring the paper in. The door was locked and when Charlie opened it, he did a double-take. A terrible suspicion dawned on me, confirmed when I looked at the clock. It was 8:41. I had set the time ahead again while setting the alarm.

Charlie was pretty amused. “I thought everyone would be late this week what with the time change.”

I began typing in Fritz’s column. He talked about his novel and why he wrote it. He began it with “The Mouser.” Harry O. Fischer went into a convalescent home, and Fritz hoped that by writing a novel where Mouser was rescued, he could “work some magic” to get his friend well. It didn’t work, but Fritz kept at it. He’s worked on the novel for five years.

I had told Fritz I would call him at eleven, after looking at Charlie’s copy of the book. Unfortunately, I forgot until 2:00, then I called him. He called me back later to apologize and say he understood now that there weren’t any pages missing. Sometime this weekend, I will probably arrange to read for him.