Daylight Shlubbing Time

shlub

A pitiful guy, or sometimes girl, who may spill on himself a lot. One that makes mistakes, clumsy. Has a hardtime gettin' ahead. Winner of a Darwin award. Alt spelling: schlub Source: Urban Dictionary

There are some truly cruel and evil people in this world. 

The king of all these is the person who came up with Daylight Saving Time. 

It doesn't just take an hour of your life away. It takes days. It messes with your mind. Makes you see things outside your window that aren't really there...

This is what I do (I'm sure I'm not the only one): 

"Okay! It's time to set the clocks ahead one hour...okay, so now it says 8 PM, but it's really 7 PM. Which means, I can stay up later, because it's not really 8 PM, but 7 PM, so that justifies me staying up for another two hours, and I'll still be getting to bed at 9 PM, in reality..." 

Jeremy took exception to this, since he insisted (pff) that he would be losing an hour of sleep if we did this. What kind of sense does that make? We're springing ahead! We get more time, because we don't really lose that hour, because we are going to bed at the same time, it's just assigned a different number. Right? Jeremy looked at me sideways while I rambled on. Spring forward. We have more time. More daylight. We have more hours...or is that in the fall? 

Anyway, after staying up late because it wasn't really my bedtime (because it was 10 PM not 11 PM) the sun decided to come up early, and sear my retinas. I looked at the clock. It said 9 AM. But then my brain said, "Oh, no it's not 9 AM. It's really 8 AM. Go back to sleep." That made sense, except that the sun had woken up my children, because, to them, time is obsolete, and what matters is that they are hungry and have to pee. 

So, I went about my day, and nap time rolled around. "It's noon," I said to myself. "It's time for Lily and Eden to take a nap." Which was great timing for me since I had woken up so late, and was so freaking tired, so I threw them both in bed, ignoring their talking and obvious awakeness, since to their bodies it was 11 AM, not noon, and they weren't tired yet. 

They finally went to sleep at 2 PM (which was really 1 PM, I said to myself), and didn't wake up until 5 PM (which was really 4 PM, which was okay, because that's when they usually get up). We had dinner, and then it was time for bed at 7 PM (which was really 6 PM, and they weren't tired), and so we had to enjoy an hour of screaming before everybody settled down at 8:15 (which was really 7:15). 

At this point I was so cranky, but I kept doing it. I looked at the clock. 8:30, it said mockingly. But, no, it was really 7:30. That meant I would be awake for at least another hour and a half, but I was so tired, I wanted to go to bed then, but I would have insomnia because I took a nap because I had stayed up "late" and woken up, in reality, on time, except that I had made several trips to the little girls' room in the middle of the night (and made sure to look at the clock, and play the game all over... "It says 4:23...which means it's really 3:45...which means I have some more time to sleep...wait...Did it say 4:56 or did I adjust the time in my head, and I thought it said it? Whatever...it's dark...."), and my "good sleep" was all but murdered. 

This morning, Joshua bounced cheerfully in my room, and jumped on the chaise I was sitting on. 

"Joshua," I said wearily. "Please don't do that..."

"I'm just excited!" he exclaimed, his soul trying valiantly to escape his body. 

Eeya...makes me wish I didn't know how to tell the time, or that my clock needed batteries like Josh's, and told the wrong time. It would make life so much easier. 

A little part of me hopes that the guy who came up with DST went crazy because of his own invention, and lived out the remainder of his days in a room full of clocks that told time around the world in the different time zones, but every day for him was Daylight Saving Time. I can almost hear his chanting: "Spring forward, fall back....spring forward....fall back...which is it?" 

I feel the same way about cereal companies that change recipes. They should have to eat star shaped pieces of cardboard drenched in Elmer's glue every morning for eternity. Mess with the Apple Jacks recipe, will you? I think not...