Time Out

I love daylight. The sun always tugs my mood upward, pulling me along like a balloon on a string. Dark, when it comes, is a needle: all the possibilities I've envisioned, all the small happinesses I've collected during the day burst, leaving only a sphere of dull air.

I also love saving. I opened another CD yesterday morning and walked around all afternoon with a sloppy smile plastered over my face, the kind of expression I imagine a squirrel wears when it buries a really round, really satisfyingly-nut-colored nut. I like to squirrel, to amass, to hoard. It may not be pretty, but then, genetics usually aren't. For every Giselle Bundchen, there are a thousand bucktoothed APY junkies.

Not that I know anyone like that.

Why, then, do I so passionately loathe the dreadful sleepless torment that is Daylight Savings Time? Yes, I am aware that, all across America, people are matter-of-factly setting their clocks an hour ahead with none of the eye rolling or foaming at the mouth I feel the exercise warrants. I recognize that, yes, the injustices of the universe are legion, and, furthermore, that in the pantheon of Really Bad Things, Daylight Savings Time lurks somewhere between accidentally running over a hedgehog and lying about finishing War and Peace.

But O the indignity! Daylights Savings Time is unnatural, unhealthy, and unwieldy. It disrupts circadian rhythms and forces most of us to rise for months in the dark. In the summertime, when the sky clings to cerulean until past 10:oo PM, it addles children and inspires adults to wait until long past a decent hour to deploy fireworks. To top it all off, the argument that DST saves energy is probably bogus: a recent study suggests that because people run their air conditioners longer, DST actually increases energy consumption.

In April of 2006, Indiana became the 48th state to fall into the Dark and Sinful Thrall of our corporate overlords. Hyperbole, maybe. Cantakerous, yes.

That's the other thing: DST makes me cranky. For a few weeks after each time change, I am mildly depressed, moderately irritable, and maximally sleepy. It's that third word of the trinity: time. No one likes time. It fades daylight. It spends everything you've saved and more.