Feeling groggy from too much sleep this morning? Can’t figure out how to change the clock on your microwave? Ask Your Daylight Savings Time Hot Line, we’ve got an extra hour on our hands for some reason.
Dear Daylight Savings Time Hotline–
Well, I set my clocks back last night, looked out my window this morning and just as I predicted, there is not a single living thing in my garden because of the extra hour of daylight my zinnias and petunias have been exposed to since we were told to “spring forward” back in March. I am beginning to think the whole “DST” thing is a conspiracy along the lines of putting fluoride in our drinking water, which has caused so many of the young people in our town to get tattoos and stick pins in their eyelids.
I suppose there’s not much point in asking, but is there any federal program like for floods and disasters to compensate me for the loss of my flowers? I spent nearly $80 at Wal-Mart, the aspidistras were the most expensive ($49.35) but the crassulas didn’t come cheap either.
(Mrs.) Oren Daily, Plaistow, New Hampshire
Dear Mrs. Daily–
I’m afraid our malevolent time-masters get away scot-free on this one. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 included a “carve-out” for losses of dried, desiccated or deceased flora, but not fauna. If your tropical fish appear to have the “fall back whim-whams” this morning, write to Congress and ask them to repeal Public Law 89-387, PDQ.
Hasp (not shown actual size).
Dear Daylight Savings Time Hotline:
I was raised to be patriotic–my mom always made me stand and put my hand over my heart when the TV station played the Star Spangled Banner at sign-off time, 11 p.m. where we lived. Still, I have just about had it up to here with Daylight Savings Time, which I have learned is a “scam” perpetrated by do-nothing federal bureaucrats. How do I know? Well, I was in Washington, D.C. this summer making a sales call on behalf of my employer, Mid-States Hasp & Flange Co., trying to get some of the “pork” they dish out there.
My meeting with the General Services Administration started at 10:00 a.m. on the dot, but government employees will do anything they can to s-t-r-e-t-c-h out a vendor presentation, it adds structure to their days. I guess you get bored staring out the window from 9 to 5.
Anyway, I ducked out at 1:00 and asked the receptionist what time I should leave to make it to the airport, I had a 5:00 p.m. flight back to Quad Cities International. “Oh, honey,” she said, “you should leave right now, rush hour in D.C. begins at 2 o’clock.” Well, it was too late by then, the GSA guys had gone to lunch and I was stuck there until they got back to “seal the deal” for 1,000 gross of our “Terminator” hasps for the government’s bulkheads all across the country.
When I finally “hit the road” it was “bumper-to-bumper” all the way to Dulles, I missed my flight and now I can’t get reimbursed for the cost of the non-cancellable ticket. I took high school physics and know that you can’t destroy matter or time (that’s Einstein if you want to look it up), so it’s obvious to me that federal government employees are taking that extra hour and using it to run errands in the summer before they give it back to us in the fall.
I feel it is time for a new American Revolution to overthrow “DST.” Can you publish this letter in your column so that like-minded patriots in other states will be inspired to join me in throwing off our chains and double wrist-watches we have to wear twice a year to keep from getting discombobulated?
Dwayne E. Konstanz, Ottumwa, Iowa
Dear Dwayne–
I feel your pain. Unfortunately, Daylight Savings Time was cooked up by Benjamin Franklin, the “Founding Father” who was so crazy he flew a kite in the rain with a metal key on the string! This is why his picture does not appear on any of our currency, I think he was electrocuted.
We value our relationships with the local newspapers who purchase our syndicated columns, and accordingly adhere to a strict “no-politics” rule in giving Daylight Savings Time advice to readers. You may be able to communicate with like-minded citizens through the fillings in your teeth if you set your TV to your local public access television station.
Dear Daylight Savings Time Hotline–
I was at the Chez When Lounge last night at 2 a.m. when the “witching hour” for Daylight Savings Time struck, and Wendell Farren, the owner, announced that the bar would stay open for another fifty minutes and everybody could have one (1) free drink. Well, your chances of getting one “on the house” from Wendell are slim and none, and Slim has left town as they say, so I said “Sure, I’ll have another Zima,” the substitute beer so clear you can see through it.
Well, that last one “went to my head.” It may have been my fifth or sixth, I don’t know, it’s hard to keep track, like Daylight Savings Time. Anyway, I ended up in bed with Eddie Ray Vlasick, who has been after me since high school, and I “lost my maidenhead” as they say in romance novels.
My question for you is, I never would’ve done what I did without that durn extra hour. When DST time comes around next spring, is there some way I can time travel back to the past when the one-hour window opens up and regain my lost virginity?
Veronica Smithers, Otterville MO.
Dear Veronica–
Virginity, like time, is relative. If you are not visibly pregnant by March of 2020, you can declare to become a virgin again, it is a little like being a “free agent” in one of our major league sports. Give it a try and see if somebody better than Eddie Ray picks you up off the waiver wire!