You Gotta Love Daylight Saving Time!

You Gotta Love Daylight Saving Time!

Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead one hour this weekend unless you’re in Arizona or Hawaii or some parts of Canada(?)

My Canadian friends can skip to the bottom of us this if you’re in a hurry.

Even though I’m an old curmudgeon – and let me emphasize the “OLD” part – I still manage to learn something new every day – this is, I think, nature’s way of replacing some of the dozens of things my aging brain forgets every day. 

I learned that calling Daylight Saving Time, “Daylight Savings Time”, with an S is, incorrect. They say it makes me look like an idiot to everyone who knows it’s correctly called Daylight Saving Time.  This means, of course, the Grammar Police who always seem to have a warrant out for my arrest. I’ve spent my entire life – well most of it since high school at least- hiding from the Grammar Police.

Lookie here:

“Daylight Savings Time is a misspelling, but more common than the correct term. Setting our clocks 1 hour forward in the spring is often referred to as “Daylight Savings Time” even though “Daylight Saving Time” is the correct spelling…”

If so inclined, you can check my source here.

I’m so tired of being corrected, I tells ya! So, not wanting to look like an idiot or a fool, any more than I usually do, I’ve called this piece “You Gotta Love Daylight Saving Time!” That should appease those who look for perfection – although I can’t promise anywhere near perfection for what lies just ahead.

SET YOUR CLOCKS AHEAD BEFORE BED ON SATURDAY!

First, I’m going to remind you to set your clocks ahead an hour this weekend – normally Saturday before you go to bed – say the time experts.

However, I suggest you do it on Saturday afternoon around 5:07 PM (standard time) that way you can get used to the later sunset, and if you doze off before the witching hour your duty of springing your clock ahead an hour is already done.

I used to hate the day when we set the clocks ahead an hour. For I loved to skulk around in the dark – to me Daylight Saving Time was anathema. I used to enjoy taking walks in the dead dark of night – which on standard time around here is can be as early as 5:15 PM – and seeing that everyone was snug in their homes. It was comforting. I once traipsed through nearby neighborhoods in ny brand-spankin’-new Cat’s Pause® walking shoes. OK, so they’re expensive and hard to find – but everyone deserves to splurge a little… even if you’re broke.

Most people have car loans – I have shoe loans. I say splurge before the big dirge.

I know that sounds morose, morbid, and melancholy, but it’s true. And what better reminder is there than the hourglass metaphor – each one of us has an hourglass with our name on it sitting up there in the Hall of Hourglasses – and in each of those hourglasses, the sand is swiftly running out. My sand, your sand, everyone’s sand — all running out.  And no matter how much money you have – you can’t buy more sand. The Great Equalizer! When that last grain of sand slides down the tube, it’s lights out. It’s over. Kapuk. Finished! The Fat Lady Sings!

Anyway, Daylight Saving Time used to be a sad time for me – no more long nights of darkness, no more nightly walks skulking stealthily through the murky, gloomy, silent streets alone with my thoughts – peering into people’s homes to see what they’re watching on TV. “LOOK! There’s Red Skelton!”

I don’t feel that way anymore. Back when I used to enjoy those stealthy walks in the cloaking black veil of night, I also used to be able to stay awake past 10:00 PM. Back in the day, I had time to enjoy good books and good movies before turning in for the night. So, I used to love the dark and gloom and the shadows and all the murky things borne on those dark wings of the night – and finding out what people like to watch on TV.

But not anymore.

In the fall and winter, when we are on standard time, I can hardly stay awake past 9:00 o’clock. It gets starts dark around here at about 4:45  PM and by 5:15 PM it’s dark. In my meager life that means by the time the clock strikes nine, the night has already shrouded my world in gloomy, melancholy darkness for nearly four hours.

If I start to read the book – or tablet- no matter how exciting or good, inevitably plummets from my hand to the floor, making a loud thud and waking me. I can manage only 2 or 3 pages each evening. At that rate, it takes me 4 months to read a 350-page novel. So a book I start in November, I probably won’t finish until March. By then, I can’t remember what it’s about.

And movies? Let me tell you about movies.  No matter how good the movie, I end up falling asleep before it’s half over. I fall asleep in my old man’s recliner with my neck crooked at an amusingly odd angle — according to those who’ve witnessed it — with the TV remote clutched in my hand. I don’t sleep very long before I wake up with a painful start and a sore neck, and fingers so stiff I have to pry them off the remote.

So, yes, I look forward to Daylight Saving Time these latter years. Don’t give me the hooey about losing an hour’s sleep. I lose more than an hour’s sleep every night getting up and going to the bathroom, or getting a drink, or rolling around on the bed trying to find a position where my aging carcass feels comfortable enough to go to sleep.  So don’t ever tell me you don’t like Daylight Saving Time because you’re going to lose an hour’s worth of sleep! 

And don’t you love the ones who remind you that you’re going to make up that hour of sleep come autumn? What are they smoking? Here in my neck of the woods, it’s roughly seven and a half months between the beginning of Daylight Saving Time and the ending of Daylight Saving Time. That’s roughly 220 days. Now, do you think 220 nights from now, you’re going to put on your PJs, crawl into bed, yawn, and say to yourself — or anyone nearby — “Gosh, I’m so glad I’m going to get back that hour of sleep that Daylight Saving Time stole from me last March. That has stuck in my craw for the last 220 days.”

I really don’t think so, and neither do you. Yet you’re going to hear people moaning about losing an hour of sleep when Daylight Saving Time begins. You’re going to hear why they think Daylight Saving Time is terrible. You’re going to hear people tell you next fall, that you’re going to get back that hour of sleep you lost in the spring. Seriously?

I like Daylight Savings Time because  I can stay up way past 9:00 PM – heck I can even mow the grass at 8:30 PM if I want to! I can sit outside and read a book and drink beer. When Daylight Saving Time is in effect, I can read a 350-page novel in three or four nights. I can stay awake until 11:00 PM or so, just like younger folks do. That means I can mow the lawn, read a book, drink a beer and watch a movie – all the same evening! What’s not to like about Daylight Saving Time?

OK so I now have to walk in the light. Big deal! My new Cat’s Pause® walking shoes are bright red – and I don’t mind stylin’ around in the daylight wearing them. They’re pretty cool! Besides, no one younger than sixty notices me anyway – I’m invisible to anyone younger. And that’s a good thing because I don’t have to comb what’s left of my hair. If it’s windy I just wear a hat, no matter how hot it is. The few long tufts of hair I have left all fit nicely under my tight-fitting knit ratty-looking stocking cap. I have one to match my shoes.

And remember, it’s Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight Savings Time. And Daylight Saving Time starts this Sunday. So let me be the nine-hundredth person to remind you to set your clocks ahead before going to be on Saturday night.

Someday, people won’t have a clue what we mean when we say set your clocks ahead one hour – or set them back one hour. Clocks you have to “set” will be as outdated as the rotary dial telephone.

Anyway, if you live in the USA, or I believe Canada (Canadians will surely correct me if I’m wrong), but not in Arizona or Hawaii –  set your clocks ahead one hour before you go to bed on Saturday. If you forget to set your clocks ahead, you’ll be an hour late for everything that’s not being done in Arizona or Hawaii – or maybe some places in Canada – again, I can rely on my Canadian friends to remind me what I’m wrong aboot – eh?

And don’t let me hear a single peep from you about losing an hour of sleep.