Daylight-saving time always has a way of sneaking up on me. Sometimes I am happy to hear about it, like when it ends at 2 a.m. in fall, giving me an extra hour to roll around in the leaves in the middle of the night.
Other times, like this past Sunday, I would do anything to keep the hour in spring we sacrifice to daylight (and by “we,” I don’t include Arizona, Hawaii and parts of Indiana Ö lucky bastards).
You see, I am a very temporally aware person. This means I’m punctual, discounting the deadlines set for homework and this column.
If you’ve ever seen my favorite television show, “Batman: The Animated Series,” you might have seen a villain named The Clock King. This is me – I meticulously plan every part of my day, I get angry when someone is late, and, occasionally, I’ll rob a bank.
All right, so maybe I’m not exactly The Clock King, but I believe my well-being is dependant on my watch.
So when daylight-saving time forced me to flush away an hour Sunday morning, I was devastated. I could really feel that missing an hour of sleep the next day, and just knowing I didn’t rest for a full 12 hours was enough to throw off my daily routine.
That routine consists of a shower, lunch and a four-hour trip to PetSmart to look at the kitties, but that’s how I arrange my schedule, and so be it. I ended up being late for Wheel of Fortune because I was so disoriented.
To counter this frustration that clearly we all face on some level or another, I would like to propose a daylight-saving time control method that is a little more forgiving. Why can’t we just agree to add or subtract one hour out of the year at a time of our choosing? That way, some of us could just avoid daylight-saving time altogether by negating the two time changes, and some could “cash” in an extra hour when they really need it. If you chose this option, you’d of course have to abandon another hour at a later date – that way you could speed up a boring class.
I don’t see anything wrong with this system if it is regulated in the correct manner. Everyone would be given government-issued “time passes,” which work sort of like doctor’s excuses but not as easy to forge.
Cashing in these slips would require a number of signatures and such – maybe approval by a city alderman or mayor or something.
If there is an oversight to my plan, it might be that it is too damn clever. Seriously, the world may not be ready for this kind of reasoning and apparent genius. Like Einstein and Tesla, I might be a little ahead of my time (pun intended). I should really go on to tackle bigger and better world problems.
Or better yet, I should devise a brilliant plot to rob a bank! The Clock King will strike again when the clock strikes 2! Muhahahahahahahah!
Mat Koehler welcomes comments at [email protected].
