Can I Go Home Yet?

Today is the first day at work under these new "daylight savings time" rules, and things have not gone as swimmingly as I might have liked. I'm always reminded of how much I dislike this whole daylight savings time thing when it rolls around, mostly because half the time I'm frustrated and confused by what the clock is telling me. Oh, sure, there's the inconvenience of setting the clocks back, or forward, or ahead by 42 minutes if you just wanna fuck with someone, but today is that day that I'm really reminded of just how inconvenient this whole thing is.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this to any of you, but I grew up in the great state of Indiana, where we didn't have such things as daylight savings time or hobbies other than shooting and plowing. When I moved to North Carolina in the fall of 2002, I got my first taste of this crazy semi-annual event and it was then that I realized it left a sour, terrible taste in my mouth.

See, currently, it's 4:32 pm, but my finely tuned internal clock is telling me that it's 5:32 pm, and that means food and SpongeBob time. My brain is telling that precision instrument inside my body that, no, it's set up two more Suzuki reactions and update your notebook time. Well, perhaps my brain isn't saying this, but the clock on the wall, my computer and phone are saying this. More importantly, the clock on the wall, the computer and the phone are telling my boss that it's set up two more Suzuki reactions and update the notebook time. This causes me to sigh wistfully and wonder just what that plucky little poriferan would be up to now, had the world that suddenly jolted on its axis and stopped time momentarily, thus causing the world's clocks to lapse by an hour.

This happens at several times during the day for the first few painful penetrations days of daylight savings time, but it always seems to be exacerbated by the first day at work after we've changed the clocks. I get hungry during the midmorning hours, I don't get sleepy until the hour grows to an obscene lateness that all but ensures that the following day will be met with listlessness and fatigue, and I wake up an hour early, wondering why the hell I can't get back to sleep, despite the fact that it's pitch dark outside and no one is screaming that a passing aircraft has terrified them from their otherwise peaceful slumber.

I guess the only silver lining in this whole thing is that President Bush--rather than doing the intelligent thing and abolishing this madcapped, crazy scenario designed to save candles--shortened the duration of "standard time." It means that, in five months, we'll be switching back to "daylight time," and that finely tuned, precision crafted hourglass in my head can get back to getting hungry at noon, rather than 1pm. Or, wait, if I'm eating at noon, now, does that make it 11 am, or when we switch it up, will 11 am be 1 pm?

Oh, fuck it all, I'm going to get a drink and watch cartoons.