Mad about DST

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Mad about DST

By S.K. Bardwell
Posted Monday, March 9, 2009

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We reset all our clocks yesterday, with the usual results — no one felt like eating when the clocks said it was time to eat, no one felt like going to bed when the clocks said it was bedtime, no one felt like getting up when the alarms said it was time to rise.

Daylight Savings started earlier than ever this year, and I’m mad about it. I’m so damn mad, I’ll still be mad on Nov. 1, when the time changes back again, and it will start all over.

I guess I’m going to be mad about Daylight Savings Time pretty much year-round from here on out.

I’m so mad, I reverted back to my youth in the sixties. Protests, chanting, civil disobedience.

Well, here I am, protesting. Unfortunately, “daylight savings” doesn’t seem to lend itself to any good chanting:

“What do we want?”

“No more Daylight Savings Time.”

“When do we want it?”

“An hour ago.”

But civil disobedience, now, that has possibilities. What if we all simply denied the existence of Daylight Savings Time?

By “all” I mean those of us who are not elected to any group that ever voted on what time it should be, and seriously expected others to pay any attention. We’re clearly in the majority here.

Our numbers, and the very nature of the issue, make passive resistance the obvious path.

What if all the lawmakers in Washington D.C. got to work at the correct (Daylight Savings) time, and the doors were still locked? What if no one was around to answer their phones and fetch their coffee, because all us non-elected citizens were still home asleep?

And what if, in November, those lawmakers were right in the middle of their afternoon and they looked around for someone to answer their phone or get their coffee, and no one was there because all the non-elected people had gone home at the real quitting time?

Chaos. Anarchy. Elected officials in towering snits.

Doesn’t that sound delightful?

I don’t know anyone who likes Daylight Savings Time. I want a referendum on this. I’ll campaign. I’ll lobby. I’ll circulate petitions. I’ll complain bitterly.

Follow me! Follow me to freedom! We’ll start tomorrow at 8 a.m.

Oh, wait – I think I see a problem.