They Won’t Fix It

“This is so wrong. You can see how screwed up it is, can’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ronnie. It’s been like this for years.”

“Just because it’s been like this forever doesn’t make it right. People thought the world was flat for centuries; that didn’t make it that way? Eventually, people woke up to the fact that the Earth is round. Now, only the Flat Earth Society members believe that nonsense. You don’t belong to that group, do you, Pete?”

“Of course not, but I can’t see what’s so bad about changing the clocks twice a year.”

“You don’t get it. Let’s start with the simple stuff. How many clocks and watches do you own, 3-4, maybe more? Twice a year, just before you go to bed or right after getting up, you need to go to each clock and reset it either one hour earlier or later, depending on whether it’s spring or fall. For some people, it means climbing a ladder, taking the clock off the wall, resetting the hands, and placing it back on the wall. The older you get, the less climbing ladders is a good idea. Then you need to synchronize every other time piece in the house to the one on the wall.”

“Okay, Ronnie, I’ll give you that one. It can be a bit of an inconvenience, but it only happens twice a year. That’s not such a big deal.”

“It could be a big deal if the clock you forgot to reset was your alarm clock and you got up an hour late for work, or you missed your flight because you were still on Standard Time while the rest of the world was on Daylight Savings Time. I bet you’d think it was a big deal, Pete, if you had to work a double shift and instead of getting some well-deserved sleep you needed to be up for work an hour earlier than you should have just because of this stupid time change.”

“I’m not saying time change doesn’t cause an occasional hiccup, but it must have been put in place for a good reason, or it wouldn’t have been implemented. This is how time has always been handled, right?”

“Nope, this changing the clocks backwards and forwards is relatively new. Ben Franklin was the first one to propose it, except he wanted to use cannons to wake people up when the sun rose. Germany and Austria were the first to implement a time change during WWI to save energy. F.D.R. brought it to the U.S. during WWII. For the same reason. When I was a kid, my parents told me it was done so the farmers could have more daylight to work the fields, but they actually hate it because time change messes with the animals' feeding schedules.”

“So, what you’re telling me, Ronnie, is nobody likes this time change system, but everyone continues to go along with it.”

“Not everyone. In the U. S., Arizona and Hawaii never change their clocks. Most of South America also leave their clocks alone. The same goes for parts of Asia. Australia confuses things even more because their winter is our summer so they’re falling back while we’re springing forward.”

“I never realized what a complicated system people have set up simply to keep the sun out for an extra hour, Ronnie. Why hasn’t anyone brought this up to the people in charge?”

Oh, they have, Pete. For example, Florida passed a law two years ago to stop putting the clocks back because it messes with their tourist business. Unfortunately, the law can’t go into effect unless the Federal Government approves it, and they don’t seem interested in doing that. So I guess now you understand when I say, we find it easier to ignore this broken system and act as though everything is perfectly normal than it is to fix it.”