In the mid to late eighties I jetted the country end to end, top to bottom as part of my job. As I boarded my flight and settled in, I adjusted the time on my watch to whatever time zone I was headed into. Supposedly, that helped with adjusting my body and mind to the new time, thus decreasing the negative effects of what is commonly known as jet lag. I’m not sure if it really helped excepting in the weeks when I was in the other time zone for, well, the week or more. Then, after getting adjusted to the new time, I’d turn around at some moment, going back to my home base and have to go through the entire adjustment all over again. When I took the job and first started traveling from time zone to time zone, I quickly learned there are two very sane states in the US, Hawaii and Arizona, that don’t tamper with their time twice yearly like the rest of us crazies do. As I’ve spent the last week, like most of the US population, going through what amounts to jet lag, I can’t help but think of the lucky Hawaiians and Arizonans who are not subjected to this brain damage by their legislators.

Oh, sure, the federal government is slo-o-o-o-w-l-y shorting Standard Time so we’re now up to early November for “fall back” and early March for “spring forward” but why prolong the agony? Admit it. You probably don’t even know why we changed the time in the first place. Growing up my Dad used to tell us it was so the farmers would have an extra hour of daylight in the evening to harvest crops. Farming. Supposedly the same reason kids get out of school in June. So, even though our society is no longer largely agrarian and farmers have machines that can do the work of 10 people, we still enslave ourselves to this antiquated notion of time change. Well, not so fast. Farming has nothing to do with it. Daylight Saving Time is not just practiced in the good ol’ US of A. There are dozens of other countries bent on upsetting the sleep patterns of their populations. It seems this all started with World War I to save coal. Coal! Then we all stopped fighting and the time change was repealed. Even though legislators back then didn’t have data showing how the time change didn’t save on energy, disrupted sleep patterns and may even cause heart attacks, they saw the craziness of all this nonsense and pulled the plug. But, we all went insane again, got another world war started and, along with the guns and ammunition, we pulled Daylight Saving Time back out of the same hat. Only thing is, following the end of World War II, our legislators didn’t repeal the law. Hence, twice yearly national jet lag, save Hawaii and Arizona.

I thought, since I’m retired and all, the time change really wouldn’t have much effect on me. But, you see, like many people, I have pets. When a cat is used to meowing at the bedroom door for breakfast at 6:30 a.m., you can’t just say, “Now tomorrow the clock will say 5:30 a.m. so we want you to sleep for another hour so we can all adjust to the time change. Yay…we’re sleeping in. OK?” And, think of the poor people with dogs, who show up bedside, leash in mouth, eyes begging for that morning walk. How do you tell Fido he has to wait another hour to relieve himself? As the morning person in our household, Martin’s the one who feeds the “kitty kids” every morning. So, Martin’s solution is to make the cats wait an extra 10 minutes for him to get up. Then, once they’re used to that, he’ll stretch it another 10 minutes. I figure by the time we get to “spring forward”, he should have the cats on Standard Time and he can start all over again. However, so far, the cats are winning so he may just have to stay on Daylight Saving Time all winter. And, me? Well, I’m sleeping in.