Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for February 19, 2023

You can compromise. Give each sparkle as many points as it’s number on a human clock would be.

Numbers are cooler AND more informative than sparkles.

People don’t read analog clocks to see what time it is. They read analog clocks to see how much time there is until another time.

NGL, I’d totally hang that up in my bedroom.

How many analogue clocks do you Phoebe readers have in your possession? Four for me: parents’ wedding gift (father and mother in 1975), LEGO Ninjago wristwatch, pocket watch on a chain, cat-shaped clock I made back in tenth grade carpentry class.

One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.

Two can be as bad as one. It’s the loneliest number since the number one

Silly Phoebe. There are plenty of clocks that just have marks or symbols instead of numbers.

it’s never not sparkle sparklety-sparkle somewhere <333

So it’s 4 o’clock then.

Nawww Phoebe and Marigold!

It’s 5 o-clock Somewhere – Jimmy Buffett.

And it is in this picture too!.

The sparkles work, but I think unicorns really must have a type of symbol system such as runes.

It should have symbols with horns and unicorn heads and such.

or something unique like just funny little shapes or the like.

She’s got you there, Marigold!

It’s a good thing she’s figured out how your mind works, eh, Marigold?

I’m sure Twilight Number would agree.

A unicorn is never late. Nor is she early. She arrives precisely when she means to.

This is the second time today that a character I like has made an indirect or direct appeal to numbers and thus math. Maybe I should just go back to sleep.

why is the background khaki colored?

I still read these in Jane Krakowski’s voice.

Phoebe tricked Marigold into using a contraction when she got her to say “sparkle o’clock.” The formal way of saying it must be “sparkle of the clock.”

And she hasn’t even gotten into Fibonacci numbers, maybe not even pi and other irrational numbers, e, i, and things like the Mandelbrot Set…

Except that you can always tell time by an analog clock — if the markers are sparkles, birds, blank, whatever! By the angle of the hands, it’s 5:00 (how boring! it could have been 4:50 or 2:15 or 12:20).

Little kids really need to learn analog clocks, because most of the time you want to know “how long until something?” and approximately is fine. With analog, you can count backwards. With digital, you need to be able to subtract, and you don’t get to that until second grade (and you might not be good at it yet). So, “10:52” doesn’t mean much, but “about 10 minutes until 11:00” does.

Because your cartoons come on at 11:00!

Its 5 o’Clock Somewhere.

It’s half-past-sparkle, let’s get back to work!