Let’s personalize daylight savings time

Just got done “springing ahead” all the clocks in the Taylor home. It took a while, since somebody around here (hint: not me or the dog) is obsessed with punctuality. The Lovely Mrs. Taylor has three clocks in the master bedroom, one in each bathroom, one in the guestroom, two in the kitchen, one in the dining room, one in my office, two in her office and two in the living room. There are also clocks in the garage and basement.

By the time I get done with the annual springing ahead, it’s usually time to “fall back” again.

I’m not sure why we do it. There just aren’t that many farm kids who need those extra hours to help bring in the crops anymore, not even around my Mayberry-esque community.

But someone – I have no idea who – says move those clocks ahead, and so I do. In the fall they tell me to move them back again and I do that, too, no questions asked.

I’m beginning to think that whoever is making the call is just messing with our heads, seeing how long we’ll continue to blindly follow the herd. Could even be a secret military mind control experiment, you never know.

A lot of people have called for the abolition of daylight savings time in recent years. I’m not one of them. In fact, I’m in favor of taking the whole premise to the next level, something I call Personal Emergency Savings Time, or “PEST.”

PEST would work like this: instead of following some government-sponsored dictum, each individual could decide when – or if – to spring ahead or fall back an hour. The decision would be dictated not by crop plantings or harvests, but by an individual’s own requirements.

The only caveat would be that at the end of the year the number of hours in each of the past 365 days would have to balance out to “about” 24.

I know it sounds confusing, but let me muddy up the waters further with a couple “for instances.”

It’s 4 p.m. Friday and you’re at work; the minute hand is crawling. But wait! You just remembered, today is the day you’re “springing ahead.” Kazaam! It’s 5 and you’re out the door. You can make up that hour later in the day, when you’re hanging with friends around the backyard barbecue having a couple beers. Time to call it a night? Heck, no! Time to “fall back.” All of a sudden you have time for one more frosty one and another plate of ribs.

The next night you order pizza from that place that gives it to you free if they take more than a half-hour to get it to your front door. When the delivery guy arrives, you explain that you’ve just “sprung ahead” and so, technically, it has taken him an hour and 20 minutes to deliver your pie.

You can even show him your watch, so he knows you’re not trying to cheat him.

The possibilities are endless. Early morning staff meetings? Fall back. Discussions with insurance salesmen? Spring ahead. Dances with pretty girls? Fall back. Doing the Hokey Pokey with your Great Aunt Edna? Spring ahead.

You get the idea. The things we love will last longer, the things we don’t won’t last as long.

I can’t believe nobody’s thought of this before now.


Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.