Lost daylight! - March 18, 2020 Old Coot Article

The Old Coot is time challenged.

By Merlin Lessler

It’s been a couple of weeks since we “sprang ahead,” moving our clocks forward an hour. Daylight saving time! I would have written about it earlier, but it’s taken me this long to get used to it. It doesn’t save daylight, not for a lot of people, especially not for us old guys. We lose daylight! It’s probably true for old women too, but I won’t claim to speak for them. When I try, I end up getting scolded and told how ignorant I am., a male chauvinistic know it all. So, I confine my opinion to that of my tribe – Grouchy Old Men.

There I was, on the first day into this madness, waking up at my normal time, 6 AM, but it wasn’t 6 AM on the clock; it was 7 AM, still night outside my window. If I wanted to get to my coffee meeting with the boys at seven thirty, I’d have to hop on my bicycle and peddle off in the dark because the daylight saving crowd stole my early morning daylight and gave it to the people who sleep late, and go to bed late. I now arrive an hour late because I don’t want to risk getting run down by people in cars, anxious to get to work. Running over a few bike riders isn’t an issue for them. We’re in THEIR space. So, how am I supposed to help my coffee klatch solve the world problems if I get there an hour late?

When I complain about my lost daylight hour, I don’t get any sympathy. “You get the hour back at the end of the day,” they explain. Muttering, “You stupid old coot,” under their breath. But, they’re wrong. I don’t get that hour back. Most old coots don’t. We have dinner at four, a habit we got into from going to early bird specials. Then, we watch the news on TV, tune in Jeopardy and are sound asleep in our recliners before the final Jeopardy question is asked. It’s still daylight. That’s what I’m told anyhow. I never experience it myself. I don’t regain consciousness until ten or eleven, just in time to go to bed. No extra daylight time for me.

And, why do we move the clock ahead at 2 AM on a Sunday morning? If we’re going to lose an hour, we ought to be able to select when we’ll give it up. How about 11 AM on a Monday for people with Jobs. Move the clock ahead. Presto! Time for lunch. Or at the dentist’s office, as a hand with a drill in it approaches your head and voice says, “Open wide. That would be a good time to lose an hour. No drilling. No pain. We should be allowed to decide, not the politicians. They enacted into law the time for the change - 2 AM on a Sunday. I know; I sound more crabby than usual. It’s not my fault. It’s that stupid time change I’m still dealing with it. Every time I look at the clock, I see what it says and then say to myself that it’s really an hour earlier on my internal clock, a clock that doesn’t adapt to change all that well. It takes weeks and weeks, sometimes all the way until fall, when we move the clock back. I can’t wait. 

Comments? Complaints? – Send to mlessler7@gmail.com