Monday Moanin’
By David Smith
April 3, 2006
Greetings from just west of the prime meridian,
Eventually someone will invent a time machine and no one will want to use it. I base this on the fact that every year we travel one hour into the future and it takes us a week to recover. Of course, it goes without saying (and I’ll say it anyway) that I’m talking about Daylight Saving Time.
Every year it is the same; it’s almost like an annual event. We dutifully follow the DST Directive and then uncontrollably yawn for a week after. Sometimes right while our wife is telling us how she feels about something.
There are three responses to the Daylight Saving Dance:
There are the horologists: they don’t have time to do what YOU think their doing, because they are industriously resetting their clocks to be in absolute synchronization with the Cesium Atomic clock at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, within .0000001 seconds. Oh, the stories they can tell.
There are the overachievers: They set the clock forward and forget they did it, and then set it forwarder. By the time they realize this, they will be so tired they will set their clocks forward again. Eventually they get second shift jobs.
There are those who didn’t get the memo. You will recognize them as they come rushing into your meeting pulling their pants on. They will have that sheepish ‘I am living in the past’ look on their face. And toothpaste.
There is another group of people who are ready and willing to change their clocks, but can’t seem to grasp the concept. They get up at 2:00 a.m. to reset their clocks, and then sit at the kitchen table with a piece of paper and a pencil trying to remember the instructions. “Let’s see, we ‘fall back’ in October…wait, that doesn’t’ sound safe, you could get hurt falling back.” Eventually these people move to Arizona or Hawaii. Not for the weather, but because there is no DST in those places.
I don’t know why the ‘Spring Forward’/ ‘Fall Back’ concept doesn’t stick. Maybe it needs an update. Try this:
When you’re faced with an April shower
Move the clock ahead an hour
When you’re sensing winter’s curse
Move an hour in reverse
The concept behind DST is to save energy. Someone figured that if we had more daylight at the end of the day we would turn on fewer lights and watch less TV. My observation on this is: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Ha.
What really happens is that my kids get up an hour earlier to leave all the lights on. They also leave on the TV, the computer, the vacuum, and wide variety of personal entertainment devices. The fact that it is lighter later does not matter. If all the lights are on in a room, they will go find other lights to bring in and turn on. On their own, my four children cancel out any possible energy savings produced by DST, windmills, solar panels, geothermal generators, and fuel cells combined. Ha.
There is a change coming from the makers of DST. Starting next year it will come earlier. Then, over a period of years it will move up a few days each month until it actually passes itself on the calendar, tearing a hole in the fabric of the universe so large that not even an enormous metaphor could cover it.
There is an underground movement to stop the DST. Well, it’s not really ‘underground’ since they sell hats, t-shirts, mugs and refrigerator magnets. It’s really just a bunch of horologists. And I mean that in the most capitalist way.
Only 70 countries around the world observe Daylight Saving Time, so there are still places you can go for relief. Iran dropped out of the DST participation, in large part because they haven’t got their Atomic Clock working yet.
You could also go to Fiji to avoid the clock-schizophrenia, but does anyone really know where Fiji is? Plus it’s kind of a silly sounding name for a country; sounds more like a little yappy dog. Indiana, those Hoosier-horologists, have succumbed to the pressure to spin the Wheel of Time every year. Previously only part of the state observed DST and so an appointment with anyone in Indiana required a U.N. negotiator.
Daylight Saving Time sounds like we can actually make more daylight by changing our clocks. In fact, we are given only so many hours in day regardless of what we do. Nevertheless, we will continue to spend time trying to control time.
Yawn.
Hope this finds you being Greenwich Mean,
David
Copyright © 2006 David Smith