Time is a thief.

-- Peter Lorre

A week ago today they told us we were gaining time. Daylight saving time was handing us our annual fall gift: One hour -- 60 free minutes.

Do with it what you will.

I promised myself I would not waste this opportunity. I would take those 60 minutes and use them, invest them, make them pay dividends.

Then come next spring, when I had to give them back, I would have something to hold onto -- a bonus written in black ink on life's ledger. Yes, I know that the minutes only show up one day, that first day. But mentally, they could give me an advantage I could carry forward.

So it went like this.

SUNDAY, 4:30 A.M.: I woke up at the old time, but the clock read the new one. I had my free minutes, and I got busy. I retrieved the paper from the front lawn, reading it perhaps a bit more slowly than usual. Eventually I set it aside. I got out my Sunday school lesson. It was about the prophet Amos. I outlined my presentation on a legal pad. Made notes, refined, edited. Rehearsed in front of a downstairs mirror, pretending it was my teenage class.

I looked at the clock. Still plenty of time. I made bacon and french toast for my wife ... and some for me, too.

I was on a roll, a master of efficiency.

I was ahead.

MONDAY, 5 A.M.: I was behind.

Still a bit sleepy, I kept reminding myself that I had actually stayed in bed longer. I skipped cooking and went with the cereal bowl. Raisin Bran. (Made joke to self about how "you can't spell roughage without age .")

TUESDAY: 5:20 A.M.: Not so fast this morning. I blame late sports events on TV -- the World Series comeback of the Phillies and the almost-comeback of the football Falcons. It forces a second cup of coffee. And while I'm sitting there grumbling to the dog, the paper reminds me it's Election Day and that I won't be getting to bed early tonight either.

WEDNESDAY: 6:30 A.M.: What can you say about four hours sleep? Too short to be of any rest, too long to be of any use. I promise to wage a comeback Thursday.

THURSDAY: 6:30 A.M.: Like the Phillies in the World Series, my comeback falters. I fear I am building up an immunity to coffee's recuperative powers. The new time is beginning to feel like the old time. And I'm backsliding.

FRIDAY: 5:45 A.M.: A rally! Sleep hard, but get up ready. Set up work the night before, so I can move quickly through morning routine.

Tell wife I can easily drive up to the grocery for eggs ... and on the way back, I have a flat tire. My first in 10 years. Takes 30 minutes to change. (I'm as rusty as the jack.) Thirty minutes I doubt I'll get back.

SATURDAY: 7:15 A.M.: Trying to sleep but awakened by unusual family activity -- they're getting ready to go get flu shots. I cannot. I'm too old, according to the flu rules.

I shower and shave and see an old man in the mirror, who somehow misplaced 60 minutes over the past six days. He squints at me suspiciously, but I don't have them.

Not anymore.