daylight savings time

I hate time. And therefore I hate Daylight Savings Time. (I know, I know: you're not supposed to hate. So, I take that back. I strongly, strongly dislike Daylight Savings Time.)

Now don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against days and hours and years and what not. In fact, there's actually something nice about the individual units of time. An hour is always going to be 60 minutes long. A year is always going to be 365 days (unless, of course, it's a leap year ... but I'll let that slide). And the clock's always going to rest at 5 o'clock twice a day. I like that consistency. That dependability. You always know where you stand.

But I have big (HUGE!) problems with time when it starts to get all screwy. Time travel. Teleporting. Time Zones. Daylight Savings Time. They all have the tendency to make my head start to spaz out. I can't seem to make sense of it all... I get the basics. I get that Fort Wayne is an hour ahead of us. I get that when it's 9pm here, it's 10pm there (and probably too late to call my parents). But what happens when I drive from Chicago back home? Do I lose an hour or do a gain an hour? And where exactly does that take place?

It probably goes without saying that I didn't make it past the 4th chapter of The Time Traveler's Wife, I could barely even watch the preview for the movie "Jumper" and I become a complete imbecile whenever Brooke tries to explain the "The Lake House" to me. (I mean why couldn't Keanu just tell Sandra where he was 2 years ago so they would run into other!? Ahhh, I just don't get it!) It's like I wasn't built with the part of my brain responsible for the understanding of temporal relations. (Or the part responsible for phonics either, but that's an entirely different issue for a different day.)

Maybe it's because I grew up in Indiana. Up until a few years ago the state had only a few weirdo counties that practiced Daylight Savings Time. Luckily mine wasn't one of them. So I thought it was completely normal to sometimes be on time with my grandma in Cleveland and the rest of the year with my grandparents in St. Louis. I got used to TGIF coming on at 8 o'clock for half of the year and 7 o'clock for the other. Because 2am was always 2am in Fort Wayne. And because I? I was always on the same time. Time made sense and life was good.

But then I moved to Chicago and everything changed. Now I have to deal with Daylight Savings Time. Now I have to change my clocks twice a year. Now I have to "spring forward" and "fall back". And actually grasp what those clever reminders are telling me to do! (I still don't know what exactly happens. Does 2am become 1am? Or does 2am become 3am?)

And what's worse; everyone acts like it's no big deal! It's like all of a sudden DST is here and everyone just knows what to do. Everyone, that is, except for me. I'm waiting for the news flash. The public service announcement letting me know it's coming and walking me through, step by step, what exactly I'll need to do. I'm waiting for someone (anyone!) to acknowledge that this is the most bizarre thing in the world.

Geesh.

Wish me and my poor clocks luck this weekend as we fall behind. Whatever that means...