Daylight Savings Time (and Other Lies)

It is time once again to participate in that semiannual fraud in which we, the citizens of the United States, run through our homes changing clocks, struggling to remember which buttons to push to reset our digital watches, all so we can delude ourselves into believing that by simply advancing the hands of time by one hour, we will all lead happier, more productive lives.

The annoyance factor aside, I am frankly insulted that our leaders in Washington believe we are this stupid. While I’m certain some folks, particularly those in our southern states, may well consider Daylight Savings Time the greatest thing since food stamps, convinced it provides them an extra hour each day to brew moonshine, pickle pig parts, or figure out how to reinstate slavery, I must demur.

Even those of us who bought into that business about weapons of mass destruction, or the stories of a weather balloon crashing in Roswell, New Mexico, or that nonsense about man landing on the moon, are hard pressed to swallow the idea that merely advancing our clocks by an hour somehow earns us an extra sixty minutes to work, play, or make prank phone calls to the Department of Homeland Security.

In search of that elusive 25th hour, NASA scientists, applying a sophisticated mathematical algorithm, were able to prove that during the period of Daylight Savings, there are still 24 hours in a day. They also determined that, regardless of how many hours you advance your clock, the average per diem amount of sunlight remained relatively constant during any given month of any given year.

The idea that fiddling with the time runs contrary to the laws of nature is perhaps best witnessed in the behavior of my children. Both are under seven, unable to tell time, and except for those parts altered by consumption of genetically modified foodstuffs, more-or-less creatures of nature. Neither, however, are roused into daily consciousness by the ticking of a clock, but instead by that primordial force existing within each child that says it’s time to get out of bed and begin messing up the house.

If I had to guess, I’d say the sun has far more to do with society’s productivity than the time of day. Going back to my kids, I have observed that when the sun comes up, they begin making noise. Conversely, when the sun sets, they begin rubbing their eyes, yawning, and tripping over toys. On dark, cloudy days, they are inclined to sleep late. On bright sunny days, they wake with the birds.

And what of the birds?

The digital alarm clock on my nightstand faces a window. Never, however, have I observed even a single bird perched on my windowsill attempting to peer through the glass so as to know what time to commence its birdly activities. Nor do the other various and sundry creatures which roam our neighborhood appear sensitive to the hour. I expect this would hold true even if we set our clocks ahead by ten hours, forcing sunrise to occur at three in the afternoon.

But if DST is considered absurd by the scientific community, and likewise contrary to natural law, why do we continue to observe it?

The illogical, unfounded origins of Daylight Savings Time can be traced to an ill-conceived political response to the growing pressure on the agricultural industry to provide food to America’s rapidly increasing, post World War II population. It was believed at the time that providing more sunlight at the end of the day during growing season would allow farmers the ability to find their way home from their favorite taverns before it got too dark, thereby preventing countless tractor related deaths. Nowadays, as the bulk of our agricultural production has been outsourced to China, doubling and/or tripling the average farmer’s T.S.I.T. (Time Spent in Tavern), this albeit once key concept appears to have outlived its usefulness.

For example, until recently the state of Indiana had refused to bow to federal pressure to join the rest of the country in observing Daylight Savings. As a result, Hoosiers (a French term meaning “Gesundheit”) kept their clocks permanently set at noon Eastern owing to the fact that “the cows need milkin’ when they need milkin’ and the corn don’t grow no faster.”

In a dark day for sanity, Indianans have now passed legislation to fall-in with the rest of the country in honoring DST. The motion carried by a narrow margin, barely defeating legislation proposed by Indiana’s large Amish community which would have abolished time altogether, making possession of any mechanical timepiece other than a sundial illegal, and declaring cow tipping as the official state sport.

And considering geopolitical ramifications, is it any wonder why the rest of the world hates us? What with our constant meddling in the time-space continuum, Europeans are sitting back right now, laughing at our arrogant disregard for the laws of the physical universe, mocking us for believing that by merely passing a proclamation, we can cause today to become one hour longer (or shorter) than the day before.

“Basil, have you any idea what the time is across the pond in New York?”

“Really, Reginald. What with their willy-nilly clock fiddling, it’s anybody’s guess.”

“Yes, I suppose it is. Pass the sheep intestines, will you?”

Truly, this biannual attempt at chronological alchemy is tantamount to reordering the periodic table of elements or rearranging the points on a compass. For instance, the stuff inside your Aquafina bottle will still have two hydrogen something-or-others to every oxygen thingamajig regardless of whether we arbitrarily alter its atomic number from H20 to H7G. Likewise, swapping the “W” for the “N” on your trusty compass will no more cause the needle to point in a direction other than north than it will prompt a Muslim to embrace Jesus.

Of course logic and common sense have never been a priority in this country. Just ask those first folks who climbed aboard boats the size of modern day sofas and, after washing ashore at Plymouth Rock and gazing around at a wild, untamed land lousy with dangerous creatures, harsh weather, and Indians, decided to invent the International Dateline.

© 2007 Mark J. Layne/Layne-Duck Productions, Ltd.