Time for...what, exactly?

You may have noticed the time change that occurred roughly a month ago, during which most of the country switched to what is known as Daylight Confusion Time. Twice a year, once in spring and again in the fall, many perfectly intelligent citizens can be heard muttering as they go about their daily routine, "Is it spring forward, fall back? Spring back, fall forward? Spring sideways, fall down?..."


This is only the beginning of the confusion. In recent years, the people in charge of Daylight Confusion Time have moved the dates around. For years the fall time change occurred just before Halloween, ensuring that darkness descended early enough for the tinier trick-or-treaters to start their rounds at a decent time. Now, the time change does not occur until November, and darkness on Halloween descends later, so that kids must wait until 7 or 8 to trick-or-treat. At this point, having endured days and weeks of Halloween overexcitement, Mom and Dad are pretty much ready to go to bed. 


In the spring, the time change has been moved to March from April. If this keeps up, pretty soon the fall and spring dates for changing time will meet, and possibly we will no longer be able to save daylight. 


And have we, by all this maneuvering of dates and clocks, saved any daylight? Is it being stored up somewhere so that we can access it on a really dreary January day sometime?


Scientists should really work on this idea, because think of how much money places like Iceland, where it is dark like 25 hours a day in the winter, might pay to have a little sunshine in their January. 


A recent scientific survey of three people I know shows that many Americans are not in favor of the time change. One of these people is disgruntled by the fact that whereas for several weeks before the March time change he got up and headed to work in the light, now it is pitch black for the duration of his commute. Another is confused by the sudden extending of the evening daylight, and as a consequence has no idea whether it is time for dinner yet, or maybe even time for bed.


The third individual is simply against any government interference with the natural order of things. Will the government, he wonders, decide at some point to move days, weeks, or months forward or backward in the same manner as it now moves hours? Will we someday have summer daylight in the middle of winter? Winter daylight in the middle of summer? Will winter and summer lose their identity altogether?


No one really knows the answers to these questions. We certainly don't. We are too busy trying to figure out if it's time for bed yet.