Saturday, October 29, 2005

Daylight savings time...explain it to me please


Per annual tradition my dad will run around the house tonight before he goes to bed and set all the clocks back an hour. Per annual tradition thanks to this little gimmick of Daylight savings time one the kids in the house will violate their curfew and using the excuse of Daylight savings time will get away with it! They will also stop by my room and thank me for teaching them that little trick; and in what has become another annual tradition I will make up tomorrow confused as all hell.

It’s that time of year again the last Sunday in October the time of year when we change our clocks back an hour. Let’s see if I got this right fall..back…spring..forward… yeah I think I’ve got it right. Ever since I was a kid this whole daylight savings time crap has confused the heck out of me. Every now and then someone tries to explain it to me and it comes out one ear and out the other.
They point out the following about daylight savings time:
•It saves energy. When we're awake, we're more likely to use more electricity etc. By shifting the hours we're likely to be awake to correspond with the daylight outside, we're less likely to have the lights on, so we use less electricity.

•It saves lives. When people's waking hours correspond with daylight hours, they're safer. Traffic accidents are less likely to happen when you’re supposed to be sleeping.

•It cuts down on crime. Crime tends to happen after dark. As is the case with accidents, people are less likely to fall victim to crime when their waking hours are synched up with the sun.

Even after all of this is explained to me when my eyes are still glazed over they hit me with the ultimate logic! “Hey you’re getting an hour extra of sleep!” I do? I am ? How you figure? There’s still only 24 hrs per day unless the government has an extra hour it keeps on the downlow and the public doesn’t know anything about it. According to my body I’m still sleeping the same amount ,no difference to me… It’s not that I’m dumb. I mean I do understand what’s being explained to me… but that side of me that still likes to sleep with my nightlight on and my stuffed pink elephant at the foot of my bed goes," eh?!" at the mention of daylight savings time. It makes no sense to me.

I’m with Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, “I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind.... At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.”
The thing is that most of the United States and many other countries take part in the twice-yearly clock-adjusting ritual, notice I said most not all. I wonder if those countries and states that don’t participate in daylight savings are less safer, and do they use more energy than those of us who do take part in daylight savings? This enquiring mind wants to know. So if anyone out there in bloglandia would care to explain it to me please do. Oh and when it comes to something like this visual aids would be helpful.. I suggest sock puppets they’ve always been my favorites.

Labels: Mia Explains...

Posted by @ 10:14 PM
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