Maybe you watch the Fox television show, 24, in which a federal agent named Jack Bauer has 24 hours to foil an assassination plot or save the world. The show runs in real time. For 24, one-hour episodes, Bauer makes James Bond look like candle wax.

If you're like me, you don't follow the plot so much as marvel at Bauer's energy. You think, "Man does that guy pack a lot into a day."

In the season premiere Tuesday, our man tried to reconcile with his daughter, took a call from the president of the United States, went back to work after a year off, questioned a witness, shot him in the chest and shaved his own beard.

All between 8 and 9 in the morning.

I don't know about you, but between 8 and 9 a.m., I'm fumbling with light switches.

This Tuesday, Jack has to deal with his daughter who has disappeared and a shadowy terrorist group that wants to nuke Los Angeles.

That's between 9 and 10 Jack-time, when my biggest decision is: Sleep oOr Regis?

Who knows what thrills await our hero in the next 23 hours.

Probably, he won't be fixing a kid's bike or plunging a toilet.

He won't be sitting in traffic because some trucker tried to run the Lytle Tunnel at 60 mph.

Hey, Jack, after you've kept L.A. from glowing, could you take out the trash?

That isn't reality TV. This is:

8-9 a.m.: Light switches have been misplaced. Can't find remote. Too dark to look. Sleep.

9-10 a.m.: Zzzzz.

10-11 a.m.: Pour cereal. Miss bowl. Pour milk. Milk hits spoon in bowl, flies all over table.

11 a.m.-noon: Put wet newspaper in microwave.

Noon-1 p.m.: Paper cooking for an hour. Sixty minutes instead of 60 seconds. Knippenberg's face glowing. Can't find remote.

1-2 p.m.: Search for remote: Between couch cushions, behind armoire, underneath pile of laundry, in the dog's food bowl. At the neighbor's. Find remote on top of TV. Turn on TV. Look for Conan O'Brien.

2-3 p.m.: Realize it's 2 in the afternoon.

3-4 p.m.: Study my fingernails for faces of famous people. Today, for example, the nail on my right index finger looks like Robert Blake.

4-5 p.m.: Ponder the aching beauty of life. Discover it's too painful to bear while awake.

5-6 p.m.: Zzzzz.

6-7 p.m.: Does Jack Bauer have a Palm Pilot? Why is he never stuck in traffic? How does a man get from the San Fernando Valley to his job in downtown Los Angeles in an hour, during morning drive, and still have time to shoot someone and shave?

7-8 p.m.: Wife and children expect dinner. With me, evidently. Try to remember their names.

8-9 p.m.: Write the Declaration of Independence with the letters from a box of Alpha-Bits.

9-10 p.m.: Help with homework. Kids give up on me when I tell them I forgot my social studies book.

10-11 p.m.: Forget to remember whatever it was I was trying not to forget to remember. Click on Monday Night Football. Remember it's Wednesday. Where does the time go?

11 p.m.-midnight: Want some ice cream. Can't find it.

Midnight-1 a.m.: Jack Bauer took a year off after last year. What'd he do with all that free time, save a galaxy?

1-2 a.m.: Search for remote: In pantry, on mantel, underneath child, in sock drawer. Between couch cushions. In Waynesville. Find remote on top of TV. There's Conan.

2-3 a.m.: Ponder which shoulder to sleep on.

3-4 a.m.: Left.

4-5 a.m.: Ice cream is in trunk of car. Oh, yeah. Now I remember.

5-6 a.m.: Shower. Bath mat on carpeted floor in front of shower moves, to over by sink, a foot at least. Does this every day. It's some kind of trick.

6-7 a.m.: Can't find glasses. Search for glasses: On nightstand, on counter by door, on roof. Between couch cushions.

7-8 a.m.: Locate glasses on bridge of nose.

8-9 a.m.: Plan to watch taped episode of 24. Is it real time if it's taped? If I speed through the commercials, does Jack have to, you know, move faster? What does he do while we're watching car ads?

Questions meaningless. Can't find remote.

E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com