Charlie Hatton About This
About Me
Email Me

Bookmark
 FeedBurnerEmailTwitterFacebookAmazon
Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA



All Quotes
Site Search:
HomeAboutArchiveBestShopEmail

« Doggone... Dog Back! | Main | A Shitbox Showdown »

Spring Forward, Screw You!

Today is my second least favorite day of the year. The Monday after 'Daylight Savings' kicks in always blows puffin chunks.

It's not so much about losing an hour in an instant, either. I hate the 'fall back' bullshit in the autumn even more -- in fact, that's my very least favorite day of the year. I'll explain.

Daylight savings time always begins and ends on a weekend. The chinwags in charge of these temporal shenanigans say that's to give us a non-working day to acclimate to our new time perspective. 'Take it easy there, tiger -- the world's a whole hour different now. Maybe you should lie down for a bit, just to be safe.'

Bullshit.

What it really does is give us one more day to ignore the fact that some bunch of legislative layabouts took Ben Franklin's joke seriously, and decreed that we should fiddle with time as though it were our own.

(But we can't fiddle with it more than twice a year, or we're only playing with it.)

"I can nuke a bean burrito or tape three seasons of Buffy with the push of a button, but adding an hour to the time requires an instruction manual and a three-button Vulcan death grip?"

So most people -- and especially we fat, lazy Americans -- don't get around to adjusting our time gizmos on Sunday at all. And why would we? Who cares what time it is on Sunday? Especially in the spring -- there's no football scheduled or anything. If you're sitting on the couch munching cheese doodles at three in the afternoon, would your life really be any different if it were suddenly four PM instead? I think not, doodlelips.

Ergo, nothing changes on Sunday. Maybe, just before bed, you adjust the alarm clock on the nightstand. And if it's springtime, you curse the wretched beast for planning to ring an hour sooner than usual.

(Of course, if it's fall, you turn the clock back and say to yourself:

'Wow, it's so early now! I can stay up another hour!'

At which point, you get caught up in a book, a project, or a made-for-TV movie starring Karen Allen as a plucky single mom fighting City Hall or some such nonsense, and end up staying awake for another three hours, instead. Bedtime's a bitch, yo.)

It's on Monday when things really get dicey, though. Most of the day is spent determining which clocks need manual adjusting. Wall clocks -- yes. Computers -- not usually. Digitals -- sometimes, but not always. If there are other people living in your house -- by invitation or otherwise -- then you'll have the added twist of guessing which clocks they won't get around to changing before you do.

(This can work to your advantage, of course, if you happen to live with someone marginally responsible. Just wait a day or two, and they'll get fed up and synchronize all the clocks onto the appropriate schedule for you. They may also spit in your cereal bowls, but it's a small price to pay for reliable timekeeping.

Be warned, though -- if you're both lazy-assed slackers, then it's not going to work so well. I tried to wait my roommate back in college out with the clocks one fall, for instance. We didn't recognize Daylight Savings for two years, because neither of us would give in and reset the clocks. Finally, my chemistry teacher came over and adjusted them, so I'd make it to his eight AM class on time.

Didn't work. But at least I finally knew when Herman's Head came on.)

Finding the clocks to be set is the easy part. Actually setting the damned things takes a steady hand, the patience of a saint, and a doctorate in applied clockology. Every one of them has a different mechanism.

On this one, you hold the 'Time' button down. On that one, punch the 'Hour' key. Over there, depress 'Snooze' while jiggling the tuning knob, and sacrifice a live chicken to Kronos, God of the Tardy Slips. Sometimes, you're better off throwing the stupid things away and buying all new clocks, preset to the new time. Otherwise, the job takes forever.

And that's why I hate 'Fall Back' most of all. In the spring, you're in the hole already. An hour's gone; you might as well resign yourself to the hellish nightmare you're enduring, and update all the clocks. Put on some sackcloth while you're at it, and would a little self-flaggelation once in a while kill you? Come on, we're supposed to be miserable here.

But in the fall, we're supposed to be winning. It's midnight -- no, it's eleven PM again! Hah hah ha ha -- take that, Father Time! We reject your inexorable pull, and spit in your face to the tune of one precious hour. We can relive it, in any way we choose. Like gods, we are!

So what do we do?

We spend that hour, and three of its closest friends, fumbling with our goddamned VCRs and microwave ovens, trying to remember the magical key combination that lets us set the freaking time. I can nuke a bean burrito or tape three seasons of Buffy with the push of a button, but adding an hour to the time requires an instruction manual and a three-button Vulcan death grip? Priorities, people.

Then we crawl into bed at four in the morning, and growl at the Monday morning bastards who beam about how 'refreshing' the extra hour of sleep was. Screw. Them.

At least those same yahoos were droopy-eyed and ass-dragging today, after missing out on an hour's rest. And that's the only thing that makes 'Spring Forward' nearly tolerable -- I may have to stay up all night now, getting my clocks in a row, but at least those chronoweenies weren't chipper this morning.

Man, I am not looking forward to the fall.





Permalink | Comments (4)


,



Comments

"chronoweenies" Awesome. I couldn't get my VCR clock to change this weekend. I don't even know where the manual is and will probably have to Google it and hope it's online. Bitches.

If you had a time obsessed child you wouldn't have to worry about changing the clocks, he'd take care of it for you.

But I'm not sure that can make up for the fact that he and his brother decided to wake me up at 6:15am on "spring forward" Sunday.

Yeah... not so much.

BTW, found your blog through Jennsylvania - you're one funny guy. Consider yourself bookmarked. :)

I think I almost fell off my chair laughing -twice- while reading this post. It certainly needs to be a part of your "best" section!

Charlie,
We just changed our clocks in Indiana for the first time in 30 years. I have never heard so much pissing and moaning in my life. Here on the west end of the Eastern Time Zone, the sun is setting at 8:14pm. Good news for us night owls.

Funny post.

Post a comment

HomeAboutArchiveBestShopEmail © 2003-15 Charlie Hatton All Rights Reserved
Highlights
Me on Science:
  Secondhand SCIENCE


Me on ZuG (RIP):
  Zolton's FB Pranks
  Zolton Does Amazon


Me on Baseball:
  Bugs & Cranks


Me on Apartments:
  Author Page


Three Wee Tweets:
Favorite Posts:
30 Facts: Alton Brown
A Commute Dreary
A Hallmark Moment
Blue's Clues Explained
Eight Your 5-Hole?
El Classo de Espanol
Good News for Goofballs
Grammar, Charlie-Style
Grammar, Revisitated
How I Feel About Hippos
How I Feel About Pinatas
How I Feel About Pirates
Life Is Like...
Life Is Also Like...
Smartass 101
Twelve Simple Rules
Unreal Reality Shows
V-Day for Dummies
Wheel of Misfortune
Zolton, Interview Demon

Me, Elsewhere

Features
Standup Comedy Clips

Selected Clips:
  09/10/05: Com. Studio
  04/30/05: Goodfellaz
  04/09/05: Com. Studio
  01/28/05: Com. Studio
  12/11/04: Emerald Isle
  09/06/04: Connection

Boston Comedy Clubs

 My 100 Things Posts

Selected Things:
  #6: My Stitches
  #7: My Name
  #11: My Spelling Bee
  #35: My Spring Break
  #36: My Skydives
  #53: My Memory
  #55: My Quote
  #78: My Pencil
  #91: My Family
  #100: My Poor Knee

More Features:

List of Lists
33 Faces of Me
Cliche-O-Matic
Punchline Fever
Simpsons Quotes
Quantum Terminology

Favorites
Banterist
...Bleeding Obvious
By Ken Levine
Defective Yeti
DeJENNerate
Divorced Dad of Two
Gallivanting Monkey
Junk Drawer
Life... Weirder
Little. Red. Boat.
Mighty Geek
Mitchieville
PCPPP
Scaryduck
Scott's Tip of the Day
Something Authorly
TGNP
Unlikely Explanations

Archives
Full Archive

Category Archives:

(Stupid) Computers (70)
A Doofus Is Me (203)
Articles 'n' Zines (74)
Audience Participation (35)
Awkward Conversations (176)
Bits About Blogging (168)
Bitter Old Man Rants (50)
Blasts from My Past (78)
Cars 'n' Drivers (60)
Dog Drivel (78)
Eek!Cards (267)
Foodstuff Fluff (116)
Fun with Words! (71)
Googlicious! (27)
Grooming Gaffes (88)
Just Life (238)
Loopy Lists (33)
Making Fun of Jerks (59)
Marketing Weenies (66)
Married and a Moron (185)
Miscellaneous Nonsense (62)
Potty Talk / Yes, I'm a Pig (84)
Sleep, and Lack Thereof (34)
TV & Movies & Games, O My! (101)
Tales from the Stage (74)
Tasty Beverages (29)
The Happy Homeowner (81)
Vacations 'n' Holidays (134)
Weird for the Sake of Weird (71)
Whither the Weather (40)
Wicked Pissah Bahstan (49)
Wide World o' Sports (124)
Work, Work, Work (206)

Heroes
Alas Smith and Jones
Berkeley Breathed
Bill Hicks
Dave Barry
Dexter's Laboratory
Douglas Adams
Evening at the Improv
Fawlty Towers
George Alec Effinger
Grover
Jake Johannsen
Married... With Children
Monty Python
Nick Bakay
Peter King
Ren and Stimpy
Rob Neyer
Sluggy Freelance
The Simpsons
The State

Plugs, Shameless
Alltop, confirmation that I kick ass

TopOfBlogs

HumorSource

Blogging Fusion Blog Directory

bloglovin

Listed on BlogShares

Top Blogs

 

Feeds and More
Subscribe via FeedBurner

[Subscribe]

RDF
RSS 2.0
Atom
Credits
Site Hosting:
Solid Solutions

Powered by:
MovableType

Title Banner Photo:
Shirley Harshenin

Creative Commons License
  This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License

Mint Installation

Performancing Metrics

Page copy protected against web site content infringement by Copyscape

Valid XHTML 1.0

Valid CSS!

© 2003-15 Charlie Hatton
All Rights Reserved