Daylight Stupid Time

Fall behind should be known as "Fall on Your Behind" because the time change causes a state of national jet lag. Even though no one I know was on a 16 hour flight to Asia, people are grogged out. Calls are not being returned. Bills are not being paid. Kids wake up an hour earlier than the clock indicates. Hell, I hear on the farms, even the roosters keep crowing when the sun comes up. Who and why do we play with the hands of time?

It's an idea that dates all the way back to Benjamin Franklin. Living in Paris in 1784, he wrote an essay suggesting that moving the hour of sunlight from the morning (when Parisians were sleeping anyway) to the evening could save thousands of candles. That energy saving idea was translated hundreds of years later during war time in order for the morning sun to light the factories. Congress eventually came on board, creating a standard time zone for the railroad industry and signed it into law in 1918. I always thought it was created for agriculturists who need the extra sunlight but evidently, the farmers still have to milk Rosebud at the same time each morning.

Daylight Stupid Time is about saving energy, especially during the summer months. We trim the entire country's electricity usage by one percent each day.* However, what we save during the dark months of Winter is negligible and the lack of light makes me SAD (that's seasonal affected disorder). I took the kids today for an H1N1 flu shot and noticed as we waited outside in the cold, it was dark by 5:00p.

The universal clock is out of whack. Traffic has been horrible in DC this week with ten minute car trips taking an hour. A friend of mine showed up for her parent/teacher conference but it is scheduled to take place a week later. I put the wrong date on an evite invitation to a December party. Imagine if people showed up on both days! I feel so out of sync, we're having breakfast for dinner tonight...I just don't have the ENERGY.

* http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/ DOT study