The Sinking Madness of Daylight Stupid Time

Here We Go Again!

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Apologies to those who may have already endured my rants on this topic. That said, dear readers may be interested in our little update, especially the good folks joining since those timeless words of semi-sageness were foisted upon the world ~~ >

Here we are once again at the Daylight Stupid Time thing. Last year I quoted the poignant essay of Eugyppius and will be doing so until the end of time, or until the insanity stops, which hopefully happens an hour sooner rather than an hour later.

Why Daylight Saving Time is Stupid

My favorite example of time change lunacy has to be when I witnessed my homie changing the clock on his deer feeder in preparation for the Stupid Time change.

“Hey Rick, you think the deer will miss out on their machine slung corn breakfast in the morning if you don’t change the clock on the feeder today?”

Blank stare. Like a deer in the headlights. Without the headlights.

Funny how such a ridiculous ritual is so taken for granted. I used to laugh at folks who loved more “sunlight in the summer” or those who hated more “dark in the winter.” When I realized how many don’t see the obvious reality that changing the clock has no bearing whatsoever on the daylight to dark ratio, I stopped laughing.

It’s actually more alarming than funny and it doesn’t bode well for a humanity that cannot figure out that getting up earlier or staying up later by only those folks that need to … is a far better way to live a life than an absurd, one-size-fits-all, ham-fisted approach for all to endure because, well … energy … farmers … golfers … kids in the dark … Gaaaahhh!

I reckon the battle for Clock Sanity was lost when somebody came up with the mnemonic, “Spring forward, Fall back.” All of a sudden, that’s all the masses had to remember, so that’s all they did remember. To wit, Sixpack Joe typically has no idea whether he’s currently immersed Standard Time or Stupid Time. The thing is … it’s a comic conundrum with a simple solution …

Just stop doing it.

Stop pretending that saving daylight is a thing. Or that it’s even possible. Whenever enough people stop doing something, it typically goes away … you know, like Disco. Turns out there was a limit to how much Sunshine I could take from K.C. and his Band, so I just stopped doing it. And eventually it stopped … sorta. My toe still taps to Boogie Shoes … hi Jentry!

That was about the same time that I stopped all clock fiddling, finally realizing that Standard Time was just fine and messing with it was pure folly, kind of like believing that cutting off the end of your horse blanket and sewing onto the other end makes a longer blanket.

I’m guessing the first native American who did that was laughed off the reservation. Is that racist? Hard to tell anymore. If I said it was a joke, that would totally be, I’m sure of it. I take it all back Tonto, pinky swear, don’t tell the Kemosabe.

The good news is that, as of this writing, 19 states have passed laws to stop the mindless clock tampering. The bad news is that they want to make DST permanent, instead of simply abolishing it. C’mon Doc, governments would never take a ludicrous concept and try to make it permanent, don’t be silly.

The bad news is that the states still operate under the flawed assumption that they have to wait for the feds to approve their time law before they can use it. I guess that makes me a federal criminal since I haven’t changed my clock in decades and even made my computers stop doing the nonsense. It’s called Nullification. Try it sometime, it’s very liberating.

Some treat the time change debate like it’s trivial ... but is it? If we can’t change something that is so despised by so many, what chance do we have of changing anything? Asking for a terminally curious friend 🤓

Best of luck to all, especially those who Just Say NO to absurdity, whatever time it is.

~~ j ~~

“I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.”

~~ Golda Meir

www.standardtime.com