Please Stop Talking About Daylight Saving Time
March 11, 2019If it weren't for my iPhone automatically fast-forwarding the hour, or my mother, unaware of this modern magic, texting me, I would never remember daylight saving time. (Now, I guess we can add the president tweeting about it as well.) I would be better off not knowing, because I do not care.
As I type this, it's nearly 5 PM EST. But doesn't it really feel like 4 PM? Sure does! The worst part of daylight saving time is the way every clock change comes with people saying the same things over and over again. The dialogue always goes something like this: A person argues it shouldn't exist any longer, loosely citing a study or article they skimmed, then a devil's advocate jump in with a defense of why no, it's actually good, and did you know that it started in World War I to conserve fuel for electric power, and not because Benjamin Franklin alluded to it in the 1700s? Oh, and then another guy is bound to bring up the fact that Arizona does not participate in daylight saving time. This is a true and otherwise useless piece of trivia I especially don't care about. If you're particularly lucky, a different asshole will cite National Treasure, too—in the film, a secondary character knowing about Ben Franklin and daylight saving time makes it easier to decode the secret map on the back of the stolen Declaration of Independence.
State legislatures are passing laws to make daylight saving permanent, or get rid of it altogether, which is probably the same thing. Who cares?
I do admit there's an irony to writing a blog post about how much I hate talking about daylight saving time, and likely continuing an already annoying conversation about it—but I had some extra time on my hands.
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