It’s a good thing today is Pi Day – pancakes for lunch to celebrate the fact that we can calculate their area! – because otherwise I would be in a complete state of bitchery, rather than a partial one. Time change fills me with impotent rage every year; every year I think of the futility of moving the clocks around and I am furious that this outmoded imaginary concept is still a thing. Why are we forced to deal with crabby people and car accidents and general confusion two times a year, not to mention the children, oh god, won’t someone please think of the CHILDREN? It just doesn’t make sense.
Worse yet is the idiots who continually say such things as “It’s for the farmers.” Who started that rumour? Was it just to prove that people will believe anything, no matter how ridiculous? If I was a part of the farming community, I would be so pissed off that Daylight Saving Time was attributed to me and my ilk. Do you know who doesn’t care what time the clock says? FARMERS. Farmers get up and work when it’s DAYLIGHT, they don’t punch a time card on a clock. Daylight Saving Time is NOT for the farmers, it was originally established as a wartime measure to save on electricity, and do you know what? THERE IS NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT THIS WORKS ANY MORE OR IF IT EVER DID. So don’t tell me it’s for the farmers, and don’t tell me this is a good way to be environmentally savvy because IT IS NOT.
God, I get so worked up about this every year. It’s ridiculous. Let’s all pour one out for the parents of small children who will be impossible to get to bed on time tonight and who will be impossible to wake up tomorrow morning and who will be sobbing messes for the next several days until their little bodies adjust to the new “time.”
And while I’m on a rampage, here, let me just tell you that words matter, people. If you are the sort of person who enjoys more light later in the evenings, I understand that. I don’t particularly share that view, being an early morning person, but I understand it. Here’s what I hate: when people say “I like that extra hour of daylight.” NO. That is not how it works. That’s not how any of this works! Oh, you enjoy the extra hour? Why not move our clocks ahead three hours? Why not 12 hours, then we can have 24 hours of daylight! There is the exact same number of daylight hours as there were before Daylight Saving Time, it’s just adjusted differently. So do not tell me that you like the extra hour because there IS NO EXTRA HOUR.
I love early morning light but I would be willing to give it up for you late evening people if it meant NO MORE CHANGING THE CLOCKS. If someone in a powerful position woke up tomorrow and said Let’s just leave the time where it is right now I would be perfectly accepting of the situation. But since no one – NO ONE – has the balls to do this, I am fated to semi-annual rages until the end of time, or until I do something drastic like move to Hawaii, whichever comes first.
Why does no one have the balls to do this? I don’t know. Are all our politicians in cahoots with the time change lobby group? Is there a time change lobby group? Since there is no empirical benefit to time change, there probably isn’t a lobby group, so why is this happening?
Yes. This is the hill I am going to die on.
Apparently Russia did, last year. They moved the clocks ahead an hour in the spring, and then said “THERE, THAT’S IT. THIS IS THE TIME NOW. NO MORE.”
I despise the time change so very very much. It’s just ridiculous.
See also: people who get pissy when you complain about the time change. I saw a tweet yesterday that said “it’s just an hour, deal with it” and I had to walk away before I started seeing how many of my 140 characters could be used for cussin’.
This gives me so much hope. Maybe it will happen. LET’S BE LIKE RUSSIA (probably not something you hear every day).
OMG YES, the people who get pissy. I saw someone – maybe the same person, even – say something like “everyone stop complaining” and honest to god I thought I would black out from the rage. Particularly since the person in question is very contentious and complains/ bitches/ retweets complainy bitchy tweets ALL THE TIME.
Rage on, Nicole. I hate it, too. And I guess if I had to choose I’d go with darker mornings and lighter evenings, but I would happily go with either not to have to keep changing twice a year. I am all tired and headachy and out of sorts today. It was worse when the kids were small, though.
I agree, it is better than when the kids were small. But it feels like we are all being forced to use fax machines when there is a perfectly good email system set up. Arrrrghhhh.
SING IT! This morning Oldest was an exhausted teenaged mess and Youngest was a befuddled, tired 6 YO mess and by tonight at dinner they will be vile to each other and I won’t be able to cope because my coffee from 6 AM (formerly 5 AM) will have totally worn off and all will be ashes. STOP CHANGING CLOCKS BAH!
I hear you, sister. ALL IS ASHES LET’S STOP THIS CHARADE.
I will die with you on this hill. It’s ridiculous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br0NW9ufUUw&app=desktop
It is wrong! It makes no sense. If people want to enjoy that hour of daylight, they can just change what time they wake up and go to bed.
As a teenager, I never knew when daylight savings occurred. So when I moved out of my parents’ I was an hour early for work that first fall and an hour late for work the following spring.
Also, I have a small child. His internal clock is strong enough that for years, he just went to sleep at the time he wanted to, and it did not matter what time the clock said. He strongly felt that we should be having meals, naps, and bedtime at the same time and moving them an hour was unacceptable. So we didn’t. Daylight Savings Time is exhausting.