Overnight we had that excruciating experience of losing an hour through Daylight Savings Time (DST). Seems to me there’s still 24 hours in a day, though. Still seven days a week.
One hour is sixty minutes. One minute is sixty seconds. Daylight Savings Time in the spring kidnaps 3,600 seconds only to give them back in the fall.
The idea began with Benjamin Franklin in 1784, but wasn’t put into practice until the First World War. Several nations, and even states within our own, have implemented it at one time or another; and not always in sync.
An original goal of DST was to reduce reliance on incandescent lighting but as energy usage varies greatly by environment, this wasn’t completely successful.
The change in time is conveniently construed to be over a weekend night, for as little disruption as possible. Seriously… you don’t want to be at work at 4:30, only to find out it’s actually 3:30, do you?
In 2007, The United States changed the DST months from March and November to April and October. Today marks the first time in five years that DST is being observed in March.
And now that the history lesson is over, what does one hour mean to you?
In one hour, I can work out on the Wii Fit Plus and Just Dance.
In one hour, I can lose an average of eight rounds to Dot on Mario Kart.
In one hour, I can make a full dinner.
In one hour, I can make a full breakfast and do the dishes.
In one hour, I can read three chapters of whatever book I’m currently into.
In one hour, I can play an average of seven Super Sudoku games on my cell phone.
In one hour, I can write and edit at least six pages of great material.
In one hour, I can watch a full episode of Flashpoint, NCIS, or The West Wing.
In one hour, I can clean my house pretty decently.
In one hour, I drive about 75 miles straight.
In one hour, I can run about 15 errands.
In one hour, I can balance the checkbook, write out the budget, and pay the bills.
In one hour, I can crop two full scrapbook pages.
In one hour, I can have meaningful phone calls with my brothers and my mom.
In one hour, I can think up a buzzillion more uses for this hour.
But that’s when I have an hour. Last night it was taken away from me. So til midnight tonight, I’m gonna be behind on everything.
Bummer.
And Frankly, My Dear… that’s all she wrote!
