The time change continues to suck

November 4, 2008 by Johnny

I’m up at 5am, again, because my 6 month-old daughter has embarked on an anthropological study to see how much of this I can take.

To most people, 5am is an ungodly hour — one they pass dreamily while camping nude with the Rockettes in pre-war Germany or fixing a birdfeeder with their girlfriend from junior high. 5am is not a time when you’re up, reading Tweets that don’t concern you. It’s not a time you should be deleting Viagra spam email. It’s a time that you should be asleep — blissfully, forgetfully asleep. Ah, how I miss sleep.

But instead, here I am, awake. And about the only good thing I have going on is that it’s quiet at 5am — except for this baby here, who agrees with me about this stupid time change.

Let’s start with a little history lesson. Approximately 120 years ago (or maybe even longer), either God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe and programmed the sun to rise in the morning and set at night, which was a pretty good system as it lined up well with when most people were asleep or awake. He then created time zones, and decreed that said Zones shall not necessarily follow state boundaries, even though that would have been less confusing. In His infinite wisdom, He placed California three hours behind the east coast, thus ensuring that the two worlds would forever be incompatible with and alien to one another, even prior to and following Schwarzenegger’s tenure as governor. Then, because He was late for a Toastmasters meeting, He trusted the mortals to assign times to the zones and wrote His instructions on an amulet, which He gave to Karen Allen. And it was good.

But an evil French man named Belloq tried to steal the amulet. He crafted his own Staff of Ra to take to the Map Room at sunrise, but did not take back one kadam of its length to honor God, and was shown the wrong times. And while Indiana Jones followed soon after, Jones was thrown into a tomb filled with snakes and the correct information was lost forever. So for half of the year, we travel back in time one hour and live our lives in increased darkness. Having solved the problem of shortening days by making it worse, thus were the dumb Children of Earth pwned, so sayeth the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Amen.

I hate the time change. I don’t say that lightly, like saying I hate nuts in brownies. I mean that I want to find the time change where it sleeps, slit its throat, and eat its brains. I want to burn its house, destroy its crops, and salt the earth so that nothing will ever grow there again. I want to kill its livestock and sell it to Longhorn Steakhouse. I want to convert its pets to Scientology and record over all of its TiVo programs with reruns of Eight is Enough.

It’s terrible that we have this time change, but honestly, what makes it worse it the welcome it receives. My fellow citizens have sold out! People, you are given one extra hour of sleep on one night — true. But the price you pay is five months of darkness at 5pm! Yet people don’t see that. They only see their forty acres and a mule.

Well, no longer.

I say we fight the time change. And in fact, let’s go in the other direction. Move your clocks two hours forward, negating last weekend’s change and then reversing it. Let’s go to work two hours earlier than yesterday and then leave two hours earlier. Let’s reclaim 7pm. And, let’s reclaim 5am.

My daughter has started the movement already. Who’s with us?

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Comments

11 Comments on The time change continues to suck

  1. John on Wed, 5th Nov 2008 10:05 am

    2. I and my kids, awake and 6am and 6:30am, totally agree! Very funny. Dugg, sayeth the the flying push-up monster.

  2. Anya on Wed, 5th Nov 2008 11:31 am

    3. 5 am is totally evil. Personally, so is 8 am. I’m more a 10:30 kinda person. I say we move the beginning of the day there, and why not a 2 hour work day commandment while we’re at it?

    However, I have to disagree: Nuts in brownies is an abomination; a far worse crime against humanity than the time change.

  3. Johnny Truant on Wed, 5th Nov 2008 11:37 am

    4. It totally ruins an otherwise perfect food. WTF is that about? Why not put nuts in with lima beans? Everyone hates those anyway.

  4. Ari Koinuma on Wed, 5th Nov 2008 6:05 pm

    5. My family and I are with you. Time change has always been so disruptive to our lives. I’m sure there are better ways to save on energy.

    ari

  5. Tobey on Wed, 5th Nov 2008 9:02 pm

    6. Though I am one of those bizarre people who wish they could get up at 5 am and start their days but force themselves to wait until 6 so their boyfriends don’t kill them, I am still with you! Also, what’s the deal with Indiana (it’s Indiana, right?) where they randomly don’t change the time but in some places they randomly do… or something?

  6. Johnny Truant on Wed, 5th Nov 2008 9:27 pm

    7. You know, it’s always been very confusing to me. Somewhere also went to DST and never went back (props!), but I think you’re right about Indiana.

    And Ari, I think the energy thing is just an excuse. My firm conclusion is that the decisions are simply being made by colossal buttheads.

  7. Medic Three on Thu, 6th Nov 2008 2:17 am

    8. The fact that 5 am even exists on a clock is what pisses me off. I firmly believe that no times between 1 am and 9 am should exist. It should be a period of space-time continuum where nothing happens, yet nothing is lost.

  8. Johnny Truant on Thu, 6th Nov 2008 7:06 am

    9. Fortunately, that is at least true of 3am. However, I did once hear from a guy who woke up at 4am. So that one does appear to be real, like the land of Narnia.

  9. Turk on Thu, 6th Nov 2008 9:31 am

    10. these next few months I get to see very little sunlight…
    the 6am-630pm was fine when it was light at 5am-9pm…

    damn you time change!!!

  10. chat blanc on Thu, 6th Nov 2008 9:55 pm

    11. first, 5:00 only happens once a day for me, in the p.m. second, why can’t we figure out how to manipulate time so we go in later and leave earlier? That’s what I would call miraculous!

  11. Andy Pels on Wed, 26th Nov 2008 1:13 pm

    12. “fixing a birdfeeder with their girlfriend from junior high”
    Dude, I hope you really had that dream. It sounds so cool.

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