Back to the Future

Spring is in the air.

I don't even know what the title of this blog means, and I don't care. It's too damn early. Also, if I nod off while typing this I hope you ex... Apples!... What was I saying? Oh, yeah Daylight Savings began this past Sunday, and I, like most Americans, am having a very hard time adjusting. I am exhausted, confused, irritable, and magenta. This all leads me to wonder, "Why the hell do we do this, again?" Seriously, why hasn't anyone put a stop to this? Our government keeps looking for non-partisan issues that are favorable among the American populace. I think we found one. I can't imagine anyone protesting: bankers, students, farmers, Canadians, eggs, meat, dairy, friction, gravity, the letter C... Hornswoggle!...

Sorry. I'm back. Actually, there might be one type of people that in the United States that aren't drastically affected by Daylight Savings Time: Arizonans, but also American Congressmen. I did some checking on the Congressional schedule, and I was shocked (shocked I say) to discover that the House of Representatives is not in session the week after Daylight Savings, because they are lazy, unlike their hardworking counterparts in the Senate. No time change is going to stop a Senator from reporting to duty on Monday, bright and early, at the crack of... 2:00 pm.... I didn't nod off just then. That is actually the time they started sessions on Monday, March 9, 2015. Also, they were so proud of themselves for working half-day on Monday that they gave themselves the rest of the week off. So, I guess we shouldn't look to our Legislative Branch to be making changes to this antiquated law anytime soon. For now, we are all going to have endure the hour of jet lag, (as if the country took a collective red-eye flight from O'Hare to JFK,) but how did this all start, you might be asking? Or not, I could just be hearing voices in my exhausted state.

Actually, the practice started back in Germany during the First World War to conserve coal for the war effort. So like most things in life if you are looking to blame someone, you can blame the Ger... Kaiser Wilhelm!... I was having the weirdest dream. Anyway, the practice was used on and off after the end of the Great War, but it didn't really become adopted by North America until the Second World War, because the Germans had so much fun during the first one they all got together and decided to do it all over again, like that kid who spends all day on the water slide. "Get off the water slide, Jimmy! Other people want to have a turn!"

What? I was somewhere else for a second. Regardless, there are only about 70 countries left in the world that use Daylight Savings, and we are lucky enough to live in one of them, but don't worry we're not alone, as most of Europe, parts of South America, and (the civilized parts) of Australia still use the damn system. So, you may have to wake up an hour early, but it could be worse. You could have to wake up an hour early in France. You'd still be tired, but you'd also be in France, and coffee would cost you twelve dollars and you would only be able to get a baguette for breakfast. So does anyone benefit from this wild idea of time-space witchcraft?

Don't mess with blue countries this week. They might be a little cranky.
Image courtes... Wikipedia!

Daylight Savings used to have a financial benefit. More sunlight meant less time with light bulbs lit and lower electricity bills, but now it just translates into more time running the air conditioner and staying in doors playing Xbox and Playstation and Tiddlywinks, and dinosaur, and pen top, and print toner, and fjgjdyyyyyy... Jim Caviezel!... I hit my head on the keyboard that time... Anyway, as I was saying, there is no longer a discernible financial benefit from the practice, and perhaps the cherry on that cake is that farmers hate it. So for anyone out there who thinks this is for the benefit of agriculture, you can back that Tonka truck up. Those poor bastards have to get up in the morning to feed the chickens whether its dark or light out, and I won't even mention the dangers of sending schoolchildren to school in the newly darkened morning hours, or the fact that car accidents rise 17% the week after Daylight Savings. However, I have found the one group that the time change does benefit, golfers.

Yes, the extra hour of sunlight after the work day benefits golfers, which means the rest of us have to suffer under their white gloved thumb, like a ball being run through that cleaning machine they have on the side of the fairways. You know what I'm talking about. So my real question is, what do golfers do in Arizona, where they do not use Daylight Savings time? (I guess the answer would be sweat, a lot,) Or on any one of the multitude of Native American Reservations where they also don't use the system? Because despite what some people think, this is not a universal law. States, and even some towns, have opted out of Daylight Savings.

Then again, maybe I am being too harsh in my manic sleep deprived state. I mean forget the fact that 63% of Americans don't see the purpose to setting our clocks ahead in the Spring, or that this practice absolutely wreaks havoc with international business, (because when you're in New York its hard enough trying to figure out the time in Beijing without also remembering that you need to add or subtract an hour depending on the season,) and maybe we should all just be a little more like Congress. So I propose, we make the day after Daylight Savings a national holiday where we all start work at 2:00 pm, then go golfing afterward. Wouldn't life be just sw.......................