I want to talk about Daylight Saving Time. Spring forward. Fall back. What the hell is that? And just what exactly are we saving?
The typical story I have heard about Daylight Saving, is that it was enacted during the summer months so that farmers had more daylight to work in the fields. This turns out to be a big load of garbage. Farmers had nothing to do with this phenomenon. If a farmer wants more daylight to work, he just gets up when the sun rises regardless of what the clock says. Farmers don’t need an artificial change in time to get their work done. Besides, it is incredibly difficult to change the settings on a rooster.
With a little research on Wikipedia, I discovered the real story. Apparently, Ben Franklin came up with the original idea so that, during the summer, there was more daylight in the evenings. This wasn’t a terrible idea, since in the late 1700’s after the sun went down it was too dark to do much besides go home and barricade yourself indoors until the next morning.
Today, however, we have electricity and batteries. We have flashlights, headlights, and street lamps. Night time isn’t the mandatory end of the day that it used to be.
If only somebody in Ben Franklin’s time had discovered electricity, maybe Daylight Saving Time never would have happened. Someone like… Um. Oh, yeah.
So, maybe once upon a time there was a reason for it. An extra hour of daylight in the evening could be very useful while you’re trying to shoe one more horse before closing down ye olde blacksmith shoppe. But, why is it still here? I have worked all hours of the day and night in my career, and changing the clock forward or back one hour has never made any difference to me other than totally screwing up my sleeping patterns for a couple weeks each time.
I also used to work weekends, which meant if you forgot to set your clock ahead the night before, you would be late for work on Sunday. And apparently, it happens a lot. Every year, at least one person would show up to work an hour late on the first day of Daylight Saving Time. It became such an expected event that we started a pool the week before and bet on who was going to forget. I won $200 in 2003.
I bet on myself that year.
For me, the biggest headache is making sure that every clock in the house is adjusted so that it reflects the correct time. My phone and computer update automatically, but everything else requires me to adjust it by hand. Every six months, I am reminded just how many damn clocks I have in the house.
The bedroom alarm clock is of course everyone’s priority. Forget to adjust that one and we have the situation I outlined above. But, in addition to the alarm clock, I have two mantle clocks and the cuckoo clock in the living room. There are clocks on the microwave, the oven display, and electronic toys throughout the house. I have several watches, including a couple of pocket watches, that get adjusted over a period of months, since I forget about them until I decide to pull one out of a drawer and wear it. My greatest joy in life is pulling out a watch I haven’t worn in over six months and discovering that it is displaying the correct time and I don’t have to mess with it.
It really doesn’t take much to make me happy.
I also have to change the clocks in every one of the cars. I always have a little panic attack when I climb into my truck to drive to a one o’clock meeting somewhere and the digital clock in the dashboard says it’s already one-thirty.
And just when I think I’ve adjusted every clock within a five-hundred mile radius, I discover something I’ve missed. For example, this morning, my wife woke me up to tell me that she almost froze to death getting out of the shower because the heater never turned on. Yup, you guessed it. Another damned clock. Our thermostat has a little timer that tells it when to turn on and turn off.
One hour. Twice a year. I find the whole process to be a major pain in the nethers. But, don’t get me wrong. I’m not proposing that we do away with Daylight Saving Time. I think that we should actually expand on it. Instead of jumping forward an hour in the spring, I suggest that we jump an entire day.
Or better yet, one whole week.
I think we should all jump ahead and completely skip the third week of March this year. Go to your calendar and black out March 17th through the 23rd. No one is going to miss it, and it means that we will get to Easter a whole lot faster than usual. To make up for it, we can just repeat the last week of October. That will make all the kids happy since they can go Trick or Treating two weeks in a row. It’s a win-win.
And it’s a whole lot easier to tear a page out of your weekly desk calendar that it is to adjust all your clocks. So, if you hate Daylight Saving Time as much as I do, I just solved all your problems. You’re welcome. And, if you need to talk me, don’t bother trying to get in touch with me next week.
I’m springing forward.
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