Posted on 03/05/2018 11:01:22 AM PST by Kaslin
I'm already dreading it.
On Sunday, March 11, at 2 a.m., daylight saving time, the practice of moving our clocks forward one hour in the spring and backward one hour in the fall, will commence.
When I wake on March 11 at my regular time - which will depend on the pub I was drowning my DST sorrows at the night before - I will be short by one hour.
I will be in a stupor, for the most part, until November, when I must set my clocks back one hour - at which time I will officially resume my perpetual confusion about what the heck time it is.
Come Sunday, half the clocks in my house - those that have been off by an hour since November - will display the correct time.
The other half, which have displayed the correct time since November, will be wrong.
Thus, when I have business meetings or social engagements to attend, I'll be one hour late or one hour early, but hardly ever on time.
Daylight saving time was first implemented in Thunder Bay, Canada, in 1908. The goal was to squeeze an extra hour of daylight out of a typical day.
The United States adopted the concept in 1918, but, reports TimeandDate.com, without uniform rules across all states, it resulted in widespread chaos in commerce and transportation.
The Uniform Time Act of 1966 addressed that challenge by synchronizing the switch dates across the country.
In an effort to save energy following the 1973 oil embargo, Congress changed DST dates again - then changed them again in 1976.
From 1987 to 2006, the country observed yet another set of DST dates - which changed one more time in 2007, to our current March-and-November cycle.
Millions of Americans have been befuddled ever since.
I think a grand conspiracy is under way in which clear-headed "morning people" are attempting to use DST to swindle us "night-time people" and swipe our girlfriends while we are in a continuous state of fogginess.
I also think Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts are in collusion to fatten profits.
Starbucks coffee has always been ridiculously expensive, but et tu, Dunkin'? I got a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee recently that was just shy of Starbucks' exorbitant iced-coffee cost.
I suspect price-fixing. I suspect federal officials are being bribed to keep adjusting DST rules, so that we are forever groggy and grumpy, conditions that allow Big Coffee to fleece us.
Where is Special Counsel Robert Mueller when you need him?
In any event, an endless DST debate continues.
Proponents of DST say it gives us more daylight in spring and summer, which gets us out of the house and makes us happier.
Opponents say it makes spring and summer mornings darker, which makes us less productive at work most of the year. They also say it causes us to consume more energy.
I'm unable to participate in the conversation, however, because I haven't finished my first pot of coffee.
As I see it, if DST is going to keep us forever disoriented, why adjust our clocks forward and backward by only one hour?
Why not move them forward to 2030 so I can begin collecting Social Security - or backward to 1984, when I had a 29-inch waist and was still able to date really good-looking ladies?
Whatever the case, my mother is especially worried about my difficulty adjusting to DST changes. She jokes that I'll be late for my own funeral.
Or an hour early.
How about daylight savings all year round?
Doesn't work
This is the most ridiculous joke government plays on us two times every year.
Pick one. I don’t care which one, just pick it and stick with it. The change kills me every time. Going to be early doesn’t work, I can’t sleep.
Already???
They should move it ahead a 1/2 hour and leave US the hell alone after that:-)
I love DLS... Get to do more after work outside. Like wading into the hooch to catch a few trout before dark :). Could not care less if it’s dark or light in the AM when I’m on my way to work. Bring on the 11th!!
The thing it doesn’t change is the amount of time between sunrise and sunset. Hour more daylight my ass.
The dumbest bureaucratic mandate ever devised. Supposedly, it was designed for farmers. Farmers don’t get up earlier or later based on sunrise and sunset - their damn cows’ milk is on a body cycle - not a sunrise or sunset.
Time to just stop it and the chaos it causes every six months.
>>How about daylight savings all year round?<
We did that for YEARS in the 70s during the “ME Oil Crisis.”
It was great andd shouldd have been made permanent.
It is an anachronism....................(pun intended).............
Old Indian say “Only white man cut one foot off a blanket, sew it on the other end and say he has a longer blanket.”
>>How about going an hour earlier to bed?<<
Going to bed does not mean going to sleep. You are just awake an “hour” longer than when you went to bed.
Love DST. Wish they would keep DST ALL YEAR! I do not like that it gets dark at 4:30 PM in Dec/Jan. In June and July (DST) it gets dark at 8:30 PM which is just fantastic!
I hate Daylight Savings Time. I hate that anyone would say or think something so stupid as changing the clocks “gives” us more sunlight. It’s a colossal waste of time and energy, changing the clocks. In fact, so are time zones. Everyone should just set their clocks to GMT and leave it permanently. If you want more daylight after work/school, get there/start it earlier. If you want more daylight before work/school get there/start it later. Asking hundreds of millions to play along with these stupid attempts to trick ourselves into thinking that we can make the daylight last longer needs to stop!!!
Every March and November we have this same thread. I just got a new wifi from comcast and I have at least a dozen devices I need to set up. Makes changing the clocks look simple.
I wish we'd stop being so infantile about it and just figure out how to adjust our schedules accordingly without pretending the time has changed twice a year.
It's interesting that Thunder Bay, Ontario was apparently the first place to have DST. Maybe the time zones were different in 1908, but right now that place is about as far west as you can go in North America and still be in the Eastern Time Zone. The sun rises and sets in Thunder Bay almost an hour and twenty minutes later than it does in Portland, Maine -- which means the Eastern Time Zone was artificially expanded in Canada to cover more than 1/24th of the world's east-west distance at that latitude.
In before the old Indian saying about cutting the top off a blanket and sewing it to the bottom
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