Daylight Savings Time: Providing neither more daylight nor any other appreciable savings

Congratulations! If you're reading this in the United States (except in Arizona or Hawaii), you have successfully survived the first few, most perilous days of Daylight Savings Time.

Traffic accidents go up on the Monday after Daylight Savings Time begins; there is also an uptick in heart attacks. And how many people fall off chairs, or ladders, trying to change the clocks in the kitchen or on top of a bookshelf?

Do you know anyone who really likes DSL? When I was working full-time, of course, I raged that losing an hour of my precious weekend was a terrible burden -- but, even in retirement, I see no virtue in it. I saw something online about an old Indian chief who allegedly said only the American government could cut the top foot off a blanket, then sew it back on the bottom of the same blanket, and then claim the blanket was now a foot longer. That story about sums up my current attitude toward DST. Do we turn on the lights a little later in the evening now at the Curmudgeon home? Yes, we do. But, just as we were starting to no longer need to light every light in the house to get moving in the morning, we now need them again.

A month ago (or so) we were turning into a blinding sunrise as I pulled out of our driveway to take Long Suffering Spouse to school. But the days got a little longer and the Sun became no longer an issue. Now, with DST, we are turning into the blinding sunrise again.

These are not terrible things; they are merely dumb. Pointless....

...but not permanent.

In a week, we won't be driving into the sunrise (again). In two weeks, we won't need to turn all the lights on in the house to get started in the morning.

Once I finish changing the clocks, the new time is the only time I know. Or acknowledge.

Long Suffering Spouse is made differently. I suspect she is far from alone in this: She clings to the notion that it is 5:00, although the clock says 6:00, for many days. The alarm doesn't ring at 5:30 a.m. (though the clock says otherwise). For Long Suffering Spouse, it is still 4:30 a.m. And she is more tired accordingly.

Middle Son and Margaret and their five children live in Michigan now, down among the Insufferable Elitists, according to this "Painfully Honest" map of Michigan:

That's in the Eastern time zone. Thus, when we went to visit them, a couple of weeks ago, before the switch to DST, we nevertheless had to 'spring forward,' if only for the weekend. Our phones and my Fitbit, at least, do this automatically; I changed the time on the car dashboard before we were out of Indiana. But Long Suffering Spouse kept asking, "What time is it really?"

I well know that I am not as accepting of as many things as I should be. But when all the clocks in the house agree that it is 8:15, I accept their verdict. Because everyone else in the vicinity is in the same boat.

Still... the only good thing I can think of about DST is that it furnishes an excuse for us to turn back our clocks to Standard Time in the Fall. And who doesn't appreciate an extra hour on the weekend? [Rips foot off bottom of blanket and sews it back to the top of blanket... and all the while wonders... could we do this with velcro instead?]