Losing an hour? Not a problem for the sloth

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Shoot. I just looked at the calendar and it’s true: we change our clocks this Sunday, which means we lose an hour.

This is so not what I wanted to hear. I can’t get everything done in a day as it is, and now, I’m going to lose an hour.

I wish I were a sloth. Sloths don’t worry about losing an hour. I don’t think sloths worry at all…about anything.

Sloths just sit in a tree for hours, breathing. Sometimes they move an arm. Sometimes they move a leg. Mostly, though, they just sit. Or maybe they’re sleeping, I’m not sure. Twice a year, I go to the Como Zoo and Conservatory in St. Paul to enjoy the tropical plants and flowers, and there’s a sloth in one of the display areas. Every time I go, it’s in the same position.

“Is it dead?” I asked one of the zoo attendants the last time I visited.

“Oh, no,” she assured me. “Sloths just don’t move much. Once a day this one comes down to do his business, and then he goes right back up. It takes him about an hour to get down and back.”

I looked at the sloth, who was in the tree, about eight feet off the ground. “An hour?”

“Yeah, and that’s when he’s in a rush.”

I noticed that the sloth didn’t have any kind of tether to the tree, and there were no barriers of any kind keeping it contained.

“So I take it you’re not worried the sloth is going to sneak out that door right over there when no one’s looking?” I asked the attendant.

She laughed. “It would take hours for the sloth to get there. I’m pretty sure someone would notice.”

So, you see, sloths aren’t exactly the speed demons of the world. Nor do they have pressing concerns. As a result, they have this really short list of things to do every day: slowly eat, slowly digest, sleep, maybe come down the tree to do their business. They don’t read email, run the vacuum, go to work, lift weights, do laundry, pay the bills, volunteer in the community, walk the dog, recycle recyclables, shovel snow, or take the car in for an oil change.

They don’t even brush their teeth, for crying out loud. And flossing? Never happen. All those little things we humans do that suck away our time are totally unknown to sloths.

Which probably means they don’t care if they lose an hour when we change the clocks this weekend. Time is irrelevant to them.

I wonder what that would feel like – to be oblivious to time.

You know, I bet I could sit in a tree and just breathe. It’s nice and toasty warm in the Como Conservatory, too. It would be like living in the temperate tropics instead of the hanging-on cold of a Minnesota March.

Anybody know where I can get a sloth costume?