Perpetual Ruminations

A Little Off the Top Added to the Bottom

It's that time of the year again, the time when we turn the clocks back and end daylight saving time. I never understood the logic behind this, although in times past, before electricity, it at least made a bit of a difference. However, it may also be why Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked the lantern over.

The best logic I've seen behind the idea of setting the clocks an hour early is the one that states, “Only a white man would believe you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.” -Unknown

It's just as silly as the name, Daylight Saving Time, like we actually are dumb enough to believe we are saving an hour somehow? I think not, or at least, I hope not. I've also read where this helps to conserve energy, but I don't see how, there's still only a set number of daylight hours, and no matter where you set the clock, when it's dark, you need light. In fact, I remember when I had to be to work by 7:00 am, and as it got later in the year, it was getting lighter until we set the clocks ahead so we had to get up an hour earlier when it was still dark.

I also don't like the jet-lag that it creates. I'm sure it's not as bad for everyone, but for some of us, our body clocks are finely honed and changing the time we go to bed and get up just doesn't work. Our body clocks do not accept Daylight Savings Time. It's the same for animals, too. I worked a few years at a dairy plant and we got a lot of milk in every morning. The time change in the spring was terrible for everyone involved in the milking process, since it is unproductive to change the time you milk the cows. Again, it really doesn't accomplish Jack.

On the flip side, however, I enjoy when we get to set the clocks back to real time instead of Pretend You Get An Hour Time. It's my body clock again, still out of whack with the time change, but now, it slips right back into the groove when the clocks get set back. This is because my body hasn't adapted to the change, but it's been forced to work with it, resulting in things being just a little bit off for the summer months.

This year was the best example of this being off. I knew about the time change date and had even mentioned it to my daughters, asking them to help me remember to set the clocks back before going to bed. They forgot to remind me and I forgot to remember... or something like that. Either way, we did not reset the clocks. Since we had Sunday plans, we had to be up by five-thirty to get ready.

I did remember to set the alarm, got up at five-thirty with my wife, had a cup of coffee to wake up, then as we started in our second cup we started getting ready, then woke our daughters and, after they were both up and dressed, remembered I had forgotten to change the clocks. We had gotten up an hour earlier than we needed, without even feeling like we got ripped off the hour.

Why? Because it was normal to be ripped off the hour. We had been ripped off that hour in the spring when we set our clocks ahead. Losing that hour was just the norm of what Daylight Savings Time feels like to me each and every day. I got back into my groove Sunday night/Monday morning instead. We changed the clocks before we left, so we were back on real time but the full groove didn't register until I got up with the girls for school on Monday.

Anyway, I don't see anything even remotely looking like they will scrap this silly notion of screwing with the clocks, so I'll enjoy the real time as long as I can an then in the spring I'll suffer through the pain of cutting that foot off the top, sewing it to the bottom, and then wondering why we have to do this again as I cover up and my feet are still sticking out.