It\u2019s been a couple of weeks since we \u201csprang ahead,\u201d moving our clocks forward an hour. Daylight savings time! I would have written about it earlier, but it\u2019s taken me this long to get used to it. It doesn\u2019t save daylight, not for a lot of people, especially not for us old guys. We lose daylight! It\u2019s probably true for old women too, but I won\u2019t claim to speak for them. When I try, I end up getting scolded and told how ignorant I am, a male chauvinistic know it all. So, I confine my opinion to that of my tribe \u2013 Grouchy Old Men. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There I was, on the first day into this madness, waking up at my normal time, 6 a.m., but it wasn\u2019t 6 a.m. on the clock; it was 7 a.m., still night outside my window. If I wanted to get to my coffee meeting with the boys at seven thirty, I\u2019d have to hop on my bicycle and peddle off in the dark because the daylight saving crowd stole my early morning daylight and gave it to the people who sleep late, and go to bed late. I now arrive an hour late because I don\u2019t want to risk getting run down by people in cars, anxious to get to work. Running over a few bike riders isn\u2019t an issue for them. We\u2019re in THEIR space. So, how am I supposed to help my coffee klatch solve the world problems if I get there an hour late?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I complain about my lost daylight hour, I don\u2019t get any sympathy. \u201cYou get the hour back at the end of the day,\u201d they explain. Muttering, \u201cYou stupid old coot,\u201d under their breath. But, they\u2019re wrong. I don\u2019t get that hour back. Most old coots don\u2019t. We have dinner at four, a habit we got into from going to early bird specials. Then, we watch the news on TV, tune in Jeopardy and are sound asleep in our recliners before the final Jeopardy question is asked. It\u2019s still daylight. That\u2019s what I\u2019m told anyhow. I never experience it myself. I don\u2019t regain consciousness until ten or eleven, just in time to go to bed. No extra daylight time for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, why do we move the clock ahead at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning? If we\u2019re going to lose an hour, we ought to be able to select when we\u2019ll give it up. How about 11 a.m. on a Monday for people with Jobs. Move the clock ahead. Presto! Time for lunch. Or at the dentist\u2019s office, as a hand with a drill in it approaches your head and voice says, \u201cOpen wide.\u201d That would be a good time to lose an hour. No drilling. No pain. We should be allowed to decide, not the politicians. They enacted into law the time for the change – 2 a.m. on a Sunday. I know; I sound more crabby than usual. It\u2019s not my fault. It\u2019s that stupid time change I\u2019m still dealing with it. Every time I look at the clock, I see what it says and then say to myself that it\u2019s really an hour earlier on my internal clock, a clock that doesn\u2019t adapt to change all that well. It takes weeks and weeks, sometimes all the way until fall, when we move the clock back. I can\u2019t wait. <\/p>\n\n\n\n