The Time Thief

Daylight Saving Time begins this Sunday.

Gosh, how I hate this weekend.

Everyone whines about losing an hour of sleep during the night on Saturday, as if black masked intruders come tiptoeing into our dreams to carve out an hour of our slumber with sickles forged from the hands of the last analog clock in the house.

Truthfully, the real problems crop up overnight from Sunday to Monday.

Sunday morning, getting up at 7-that-used-to-be-6 is just like having to get up an hour early for a special event, or to get on the road early for a trip. At the other end of the day, however, we face a different, sneakier problem.

Our bodies now think that bedtime is 9-that-is-now-ten. We aren't tired at 9-new-time, so we stay up until our bodies are tired, forgetting that the traitorous clock is still set an hour ahead of our bodies. But we need to get up "on time" the next morning, the new, forward time, which still seems like an hour ahead to our rapidly becoming sleep deprived being.

In short, it's Monday morning that's the bitch.

To add insult to injury for us habitual early risers, the shift to DST is designed to shift more daylight to the later part of the day. Those of us who just got used to needing sunglasses for the drive to work will be plunged back into the land of the mole-people, driving to work in the dark again for several weeks, until the sunrise catches up with the new clock setting.

Then there is the other end of the day - do you know how demoralizing it is to be going to bed on June 21st an hour or more before the sun sets?

Bah. If you need me at all this weekend, I'll be taking a nap.