Sunday, March 20, 2016

Leave the Clocks Alone!

It's over a week now since we fiddled with the friggin' clocks but my aging, aching body still has not adjusted.  Why the hell do we go through this nonsense twice a year?

Y'all want the kiddybucks to have more daylight when the school day ends? Start classes an hour earlier the last month or two of the school year.

Y'all think it helps the farmers? They hate it as much as I do.

The big canard is that it saves energy.  No serious research supports that notion.  Most studies have found about one per cent less energy use after the clocks have been messed with.  In many places energy use actually goes up.

Daylight Saving (no s) Time they call it.  How the hell do you "save" daylight? The sun provides what it provides, no more, no less, and no amount of tinkering with the damned clocks can change it.  So why have the stinkin' politicians foisted this idiocy upon us?

My body doesn't care what the  clocks say.  It wants breakfast at breakfast time.  It wants lunch when the sun declares high noon.  It wants dinner at the normal, civilized hour. It does not want to be rushed into indigestion just because a batch of slack-jawed troglodytes in some state legislature decided to shove the clock hands ahead an extra turn.

Proper sleep is precious to geezers like me.  We forgo the extra cup of coffee we crave, we control our sugar intake, we walk an extra block a day, we avoid "bad" fats even if they taste good, we consume horrid potions from the druggist -- all in pursuit of a good night's sleep.  And for a few months of the year it works and we rise with the sun and feel good about starting the day.

Then the "spring forward" insanity arrives and we can't get a decent night's rest and we wake up knowing that it's seven o'clock but the damned clock says it's eight and for the rest of the day everything is out of whack. DST increases arthritis pain, causes acid reflux and destroys the taste buds.

No wonder the world is full of terrorists.