Ah! The joy of Daylight Savings Time!

Daylight Savings Time… The time of year that we get an extra hour of daylight! I’m not really sure how it is an EXTRA hour…and I don’t know who started this deal in the first place…I suppose I could take a few minutes to look it up, but I’m too tired! My brain INSISTS it is only 6:15, and that I have been up too long.

I went to sleep around 11PM, so it was really like 10PM…right?  No wait…Maybe it was 12AM, but it was really only 110PM?   All I know for sure is that when my wife reached over to poke and prod me awake this morning, I was NOT ready to get up.

I gave a yell to William that it was time to get up, and apparently went right back to sleep, because the next thing I know, it’s 6:15 and the alarm is beeping away. Initially, I thought the alarm had failed to go off.

We have this really intelligent clock that knows when DST starts and ends! It is pretty cool! It updates itself automatically! The problem is, it is too smart for me! Last fall, it set itself back on its own, but it was like a month and a half early. That was when I discovered that it had a calendar on it. So I changed it to the right date, and forgot all about it…

That is until it sprang itself ahead last week! That was a mess… I woke the poor boy up an hour earlier than he needed to be up.  (The whole idea of getting grade school children out of bed at 6 am to get them ready for an hour long bus ride to a school that is almost 20 miles away seems pretty absurd in the first place)

Last night, I think I found out why the clock took it upon itself to cause general confusion, and disorientation…I am pretty sure it was set for the year 2025…Unless it was made before Y2K? Then it would likely be 1925…but that would be absurd…Why would anybody set their clocks back in time? Then again…Why do we set our clocks ahead in the spring, and back in the fall? Like I said, I could look it up…

So, I roll out of bed, and discover that Jen is already up, and the boy is asleep in the tub. I gave him multiple time updates, and I am sure he was still dozing in the tub at 6:30.

I continue on with the time updates for him, and even nag him about making sure he has boots, AND sneakers because he is supposed to have boots on his feet to and from school, and sneakers AT school…But sometimes he forgets.

I got a little distracted by a facebook chat with a friend I hadn’t heard from in a while, and lost track of time, when I hear William talking with Jen. I look down at the clock on the computer, and see that Will’s bus will be rolling along at any minute.

I tell the boy that he has like two minutes before the bus is due, and all of a sudden I am the bad guy! Instead of rushing out the door, or gathering last minute items that he needs…you know, cause he has only had since Friday evening to make sure his bag holds all the essentials…he starts complaining to his mother that I should have warned him when there was three or four minutes! I should know by now it takes him at least THREE minutes to get out the door!

Next thing you know, I hear the bus lumbering up the hill a couple of houses down, and I tell him that he is about to miss his bus.  He keeps complaining as the bus roars by.

With an anguished groan he bolts to the door. I tell him there is no sense to hurry now, since he will have to wait till the bus comes back by the second time.

All I get is a sigh as he opens the door, stands there for a moment considering his options, and almost…but not quite slams the door shut behind him, as he stepped out into the cold first day of Daylight Savings Time, 2016.

Jen yells to him from somewhere at the other end of the house…”Bye! I love you! Have a good day!”  He grumbles a reply, and all is quiet until the sound of the bus returning a few minutes later to pick him up.

Now it is 7:30…the boy is well on his way to school. Instinctively, I want to yell to the boy that it is 6:30, and he only has half an hour… but I suppose that will pass an a few days or weeks…I dunno…In June anyway, once school lets out!

All I know, is I need some coffee! I hope you sprang forward more easily than I did!  Enjoy that EXTRA hour of daylight!

Doug Alley

About Doug Alley

I grew up in Bath, Maine in an upper lower class family with 3 step sisters, a step brother, and a little sister. After high school I spent 3 years serving in the USAF at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage AK. I've competed in, and won, demolition derbies. I've competed in, and never won, stock car races. I am the 47-year-old father of an 11-year-old boy who is pretty sure he is smarter than I ever was. We live on a little less than an acre of land in a 1973 mobile home in Stetson with my wife Jen, some cats, a few chickens, and rabbits, and a couple of goats. I hunt, fish, camp out, dabble in photography, gardening, and I cook in variable degrees of near success.