March
12, 2018
Greetings from
the salient majority,
It will come
to you as no surprise that no one in the United States likes Daylight Saving
time.
No one likes
having the chronological rug pulled out from under them. No one likes saying inane things like: ‘Let’s
see, it’s 9:00 so really it’s 8:00…’ No
one likes taking the Tardy Walk of Shame into church, hair askew, wearing what
you wore to church last week because it’s all you could find in the panicked
rush to get out the door when you realized it was a FULL HOUR LATER than God
had dictated by the sun.
A recent poll
indicated that 41% of Americans are not thrilled with Daylight Saving
Time. In pollster terms this is what is
known as ‘an implied majority’. I looked
it up in my Book of Pollster Terms, wherein it also explains how U.S.
Presidents are elected.
I have it on
good authority (a phrase that means it’s possible this is made up) that most
people are hesitant to come out against DST because of political pressure from various
special interest groups. Farmers Against
Happy Americans, Energy Companies For Groggy Drivers, and the powerful Clock
Lobby, who every year replace millions of clocks that are broken while
springing forward or being thrown against the wall.
Daylight
Saving Time, alternately called Daylight Savings Time, Daylights Savings Times
and Daylight’s Saving’s Time’s, or DST, has been purported to save energy. I won’t pester you with that myth; as if we
make it lighter later we will turn off more lights, because anyone with kids
will tell you that lights are never turned off no matter what time it is.
President
George W. Bush signed into law our most recent DST rules under the auspices of
some long-forgotten totally useless energy bill. By the way, this is the same president who
won an ‘implied majority’ when he was elected in 2000. Just saying.
You might ask:
“How much longer are we going to put up with this?” My answer is “What? I dozed off just now.”
You will be
interested to know that sleep deprivation is a prohibited form of torture under
the Geneva Convention. Our own country
is violating international law by toying with our circadian rhythms. It has been proven that this produces a
psychological stress called DST PTSD. (Pronounced Disset Pitsed, who was the
Swedish author of the Geneva Convention)
But back to
your question which I just realized I didn’t answer. (When I woke up my face
was on the keyboard and my nose had typed ten thousand K’s.) (Which is 6.2
miles for you Americans.) The answer is:
“Not one more hour.”
Everyone is
saying how this country is so divided on so many things. Here is an opportunity
to bring our people together again, to heal all divides. This could be the catalyst to solve racism,
sexism, political chasms, the gun argument and that whole ‘Coke vs. Pepsi’
thing.
I propose we
get the most influential people in the country to speak out about this: Chip
and Joanna Gaines from HGTV’s ‘Fixer Upper’.
We will launch a Twitter juggernaut with #nodst and #notonemorehour and #soundasleep and #10thousandk.
Everyone knows
that once people start tweeting about an issue then real change happens. Naturally there will have to be an Instagram blitz
too, with pictures of clocks and people sleeping. It will be a whole thing.
Grass roots,
that’s where we take our country back from the time-changing elite. We get kids to speak out (kids are trending
right now) about how hard it is to get up and go to school to compete with
Chinese kids who are not limited by DST.
We will organize protests, sleep ins, bake sales, clock burnings.
It’s time to
live in the present. Don’t make our
country late again.
Hope
this finds you falling back,
David
Copyright
© 2018 David Smith
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