It's About Time

I have an idea:

Let’s get rid of Daylight Savings Time(s) with a compromise.

We all know losing an hour of sleep like we did this past weekend screws us up. We also know the extra hour in November is somehow more disturbing. Our sleep patterns are interrupted, we drive less well, cause more accidents, and if you’re like me, you’re less patient with the people you live with. Why do we do this to ourselves?

For years, I’ve had an idea whose time has come:

Let’s pick a year, say 2030, and program the master clock in the sky to adjust our Earthly clocks by half-an-hour for March of that year, then give us back that half-an-hour the following November. That way, available sun-lit time is split equally between the two seasons. Then, when 2031 comes around, and for all the years that follow, there’d be no need to adjust any clocks. Problem solved. Minds quieted. Sleepus Uninterruptus.

What the heck? Clock time is arbitrary. We made up Daylight Savings. We can tweak it if we want.

The current time in Corvallis, Oregon according to my phone is 11:13 a.m PST. This clock at New Morning Café currently shows the time at 12:03, proving my point vis-à-vis time’s arbitrariness. There are no cakes in the fridge below.

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After I posted this, my friend Mark sent me a picture of his kitchen clock. Exactly!

Then….my friend Robby sent me a pic of this clock his wife made for him years ago. Pretty great.