Spring Back,
Fall Back
It's a day for harmless hilarity, like putting salt in the sugar bowl, rubber doggie doo on the living room carpet, hiding Gramma's insulin, draining the brake fluid from Sis' car, mixing razor-sharp shards of broken glass into ... Ahem.
Yes, it's April Fool's Day, and what better time than to spring the biggest joke of all -- Daylight Saving Time!
This is the day that as of 2 a.m., we are supposed to have Sprung Back ... er, Fallen Forward ... no, it's definitely Spring, so we had to Spring Something. In other words, if you didn't set your clock up an hour last night, then you're late for church. Or is it early for church? Or is church late for you?
Lord, I do have a hard time puzzling it all out. But judging by how bleary-eyed and grumpy I was when I got up this morning, I'd say that this was the Bad Time Change -- the one that gets me out of bed an hour earlier than yesterday, and not the Good Time Change, when I wake up at the usual o'clock and roll back over to enjoy an extra hour's sleep.
I could put the whole matter to rest by moving to Arizona, where they don't do DST. I go to a family reunion in Scottsdale almost yearly, and I can truthfully say I never notice that the day is shorter (or is it longer? Dadgummit!) than it is here. But I'd probably sleep better just knowing I didn't have to puzzle out what to do with the clock twice a year.
(This, by the way, is Spring Forward's one saving grace -- I only have to move the hands on my keywound ship's bell clock ahead one hour today, whereas at Fall Back time, I have to move them forward 11 hours, the clock not liking to be set backwards -- and there you go, the whole day shot. I finish breakfast, and just like that, I'm already late for supper.)
There are in this world nonconformists -- wild-eyed radicals and probably Communists -- who simply don't make the change, even if they don't live in Arizona. While the rest of society dutifully goes around Springing Forward and telling themselves that 8 o'clock is now 7 o'clock (or 9 o'clock? Whatever). These folks just leave their clocks alone and arrive for scheduled 7:30 meetings at their 6:30 -- or is it their 6:30 meetings at 7:30? Jeeminy, this is getting old.
Me?
I think I'll give up half of the time change. I mean, I really LIKE getting that extra hour's snooze in when we Fall Back in October, and I hate rousting myself out of the rack an hour early in April, so from now on, I think I'll both Fall Back AND Spring Back. Just set my clocks back an hour no matter which change it is.
Hey, I'm a writer, so it's not like I have to be front and center at the office at 8 a.m. Standard, Daylight or Greenwich. I keep my own hours..
Lessee -- by my figuring, if I start today, than by April of 2013, I'll be on exactly the opposite schedule as the rest of you: I'll be stumbling downstairs for that first bracing snort of caffeine while watching "E.R." or "Law and Order"; head out to Denny's or IHOP for breakfast after watching my 10 p.m. "morning" news, fire up the computer about midnight and put in a full "workday" of writing -- without having telemarketers and itinerant catechists ringing the phone and pounding on the door, disturbing my train of thought.
I'll knock off about sunrise, watch my "nightly" news with Katie, Matt and Al, then head to Luby's for supper as soon as it opens -- no worries about getting there just behind two busloads of cheerleader campers -- and turn in just as the morning's sluice of garbage TV is just opening.
And twice a year, instead of just once, like the rest of you poor obedient drones, I'll get that luscious extra hour of sleep.
Yup. Sounds like a plan to me.
Tell you what -- let's get together for lunch at noon to discuss it.
In 2025
