Thanks at least in part to the candy lobby, we got an extended week of Daylight Saving this year and are scheduled to get our extra hour this Sunday at 2 am.
"First time I've ever been early for work! Except for all those 'daylight savings' days."
"Daylight Saving Time" is a deceptive name, since no one can save daylight. "Get Your Ass Out Of Bed Earlier Time" is more to the point, but I suppose that name is a bit long and doesn't sound like something Ben Franklin would have invented.
Speaking of which, let's get this "Franklin invented Daylight Saving Time" myth out of the way. All he did was propose that people be "encouraged" to wake up at daylight. Such "encouragement" was to consist of of taxing candles and shutters; and setting off church bells and cannons at the crack of dawn. It was, of course, entirely tongue-in-cheek. At the time, Franklin lived in France, and so he was perhaps the first notable American to take part in the ever-popular sport of mocking the French - in this case, for sleeping until noon. But Franklin never mentioned setting clocks. "Standard time" didn't even exist back then. Every town's time was based on it's own clock, based on noon being the middle of the day, in turn based on the sun's position. I have to think that Franklin was given credit by the proponents of "Daylight Saving Time" many years after his death in order to help sell the idea of getting us all to wake up earlier.
If the people can really be tricked into thinking they are saving daylight by changing their clocks, why not change the calendar, too? We could eliminate February and add an extra summer month. It could be the "Warmth Saving Calendar".
One thing I do like about Daylight Saving Time is the goofy stories it produces.
Like the one where twins were born a few minutes apart but the first birth was recorded just before 2 AM and the second was recorded just after 1 AM.
Or Amtrak overnight trains stopping and sitting for an hour because trains are not permitted to leave early from their scheduled stops.
Or the guy who avoided the Vietnam draft by challenging his "Daylight Time" birth time, since in Standard Time his birthday was a different date with a higher lottery number.
Or the terrorist who blew up himself rather than a bus full of passengers because he had the time set an hour early.
On the whole, though, I take the same sarcastic attitude towards Daylight Saving Time as this commenter on Slashdot:
...Then, we elected a new Governor who brought us into the light (literally). With the introduction of DST, and the seemingly random (almost whimsical, really) distribution of our Counties between two time zones, our lives were changed forever. Now, it's light outside pretty much twenty-four-fucking-seven. Our kids are all on at least six sports teams and never shoot each other anymore. They call you "sir" or "ma'am" (these words were not used before, as it was difficult to discern gender in the darkness), shine your shoes for you, and present you with ice-cold lemonade from stands with amusingly misspelled signs. We discovered oil everywhere, we grow more crops than the world could ever possibly use (which has ended hunger globally) and we're all filthy, stinking RICH. All the women have big perky boobs, all the men are RIPPED, and everybody has an IQ of at least 160...