Hello Daylight Saving Time:
It’s been months since I’ve seen you. Wait, how many? Six?? No way! Really! Six months. Hmph. Well, yeah, I guess that seems about right. You look good. You look older, but aren’t we all, Daylight Saving Time? Aren’t we all.
Daylight Saving Time — can I call you DST? Thanks. DST, I know tonight’s a big night for you; it’s one of the two biggest nights of your year and I appreciate that. You’ve got a lot going on. I mean, tonight, all the clocks displayed on the cell phones and televisions and the computers of the good people of America* will read “3:00 a.m.” at the very moment they ought to read “2 a.m.”, as though they have been meddled with by some insane supercomputer arch villain who has taken control of the world’s technology in order to make the people of Earth (or “the U.S.A.”) suffer by losing an hour of sleep.
Though you are not exactly an insane supercomputer arch villain, DST, you are close. We know this because I am a person of Earth/the U.S.A., and I will suffer as a result of your little time party. And I have decided you should know.
See, I am in St. Paul, Minnesota right now because I worked all day for the vivacious and intellectually buoyant quilters of Dakota County. Yes, after a long week of school and work, I spent my weekend doing more work. It was a great day — and it’s not your fault that I’m busier than a one-armed paper-hanger, DST — but I have just spent many hours doing homework and regular work at my Fairfield Inn & Suites and now I am tired but still have more reading to do and my flight leaves Minneapolis at 6 a.m., and that means that I have to get up at 3:45 a.m. and that is horrifying but it will be more horrifying because it will feel like 2:45 a.m. because of you.
And you also need to know that I have stared at that sentence for a long time and now I don’t even know if I’ve got this thing right, DST. All I know is that I have a wake-up call for 3:45 a.m. and I have set the alarm on my phone, as well, and that my flight leaves at 6 a.m. and because it’s Daylight Saving Time, I am going to be extra sad in a few hours.
You were a good idea, dear. World War I needed you. The farmers, they still appreciate you (at least that’s what people tend to say when they’re defending you.) But I do wonder, in this modern age, if you are doing what Congress wanted you to do, initially. If so, I can keep calm and carry on.
If not, if you’re just some outmoded law on the books that for no good reason hasn’t been nixed, yet — like some old law about not hitching your horse to your cousin’s barbershop pole — I shall exercise my right to be extremely grumpy about you for the next several days and grumpy afresh six months from now.
I am glad it’s not going to be dark by 4 p.m., now, though. But it’s barely enough!
Love,
Mary
*Except for the devices of the good people of Alaska and Hawaii, who do not observe you, Daylight Saving Time.
Lindsey
Our amusing DST debacle involved catching a train. We had to be in Sacramento, CA for an 8 am departure on the Sunday of DST.
The train was on its way, having left Seattle a day or so before. We arrived for departure time but then had to wait an hour. It turns out the train can’t jump an hour further down the tracks just because of DST. We laughed at our folly and still makes us chuckle all these later.
Judy Forkner
Most of AZ doesn’t do DST either. I always heard that the golf courses were the ones who pushed for DST so that people would have time for a round of golf after work, before it got dark. I don’t think the farmer’s ever cared–they have to get up early to do all that farming, no matter what…
I hate DST, & I’m retired! My biggest problem is realizing how late it is in the evening when it is suddenly staying light an hour longer–“what? Is it already time for dinner?”
I also blame DST for the demise of drive-in theaters–no one can stay up late enough for it to get dark for the movie to start!
And besides–DST does not save daylight–there are the same number of hours of daylight whether we change our clocks or not!
Nadine donovan
I do no not like DST. I really wish we could be done with silly- annoying- bothersome time ordeal. I am a Nurse and I can’t tell you how often it has confused my poor patients that were confused to begin with, messed up the day in the clinic, staff coming in at wrong times for their shift….and so on. I do not see how it serves a good purpose on this day in age.
MrsB
I hate DST. I feel awful for two weeks while my body adjusts.
I say make it permanent and we all can get used to it and move on.
Kathy K
No farming here for a while Mary. They are calling for twelve inches of snow on Tuesday. Oh well,, bring it on!
Maria Shell
Dear Mary–I am sitting in Anchorage, Alaska right now mourning the loss of an hour. Yes. we do practice day light savings. Every year it is painful in the spring because we love the minutes of light we gain every day this time of year, and then to lose an entire hour! It is maddening. I love your blog and your energy.
Sally
AZ doesn’t participate–half the year TV is Mountain Standard time and for the Spring/Sumer TV is CA time, but my clock stays the same. At least I don’t have to change clocks!
Tami M
It is AZ and Hawaii that don’t observe DST. Indiana didn’t up to about 10 years ago. Then it got railroaded into being here too. I deliver babies, in the fall back there is two 2am we have babies with the same birth time but we’re born an hour apart. And there are tests that need to be done at specific hours of age on a newborn. Ugh. Huge mess.
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