Daylight Saving Time leads to using crack and watching Jag

Recently we all “Sprung Forward” and woke up an hour earlier. All of us in the entire galaxy, at the same time, that is with the exception of the people of Arizona and Hawaii. (Ok, also Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, but they don’t count since they don’t have a star.)

I wonder what that looked like from the moon? The whole planet springing forward, and those one guys staying right where they were. I wonder if their non-conformity caused oil wells to dry up, or Firefly to go off the air? (Geek reference, no worries if you don’t get it. As a matter of fact, you may even count yourself sane.)

This whole Daylight Saving time thing started when Benjamin Franklin wrote a column telling everyone they should change their clocks to have more daylight. Benjamin Franklin was a pretty smart guy. Of course… he was joking. Hello! Does no one know history? Benjamin Franklin was the biggest jokester of all time. He was the inventor of fake puke and dog poo for God’s sake. Ok, not the dog poo- they did that all by themselves. He also suggested that the people should be woken up with a cannon… (That, of course, was not a joke.) The majority of people finally realized that the Daylight Saving Time thing was meant to be whimsical, so it didn’t take. Thank God the cannon thing did, or I would be late to work all the time. (Thank you Ben!)

Over one hundred years after Ben Franklin made his joke, William Willett, of his own accord (horrors!) suggested, in all seriousness, the idea that we put our clocks forward in the U.S. so we could use less energy. (Which works as long as we all get ready for work in the dark, which, of course, I do).

Everyone thought Mr. Willett was trying to pull a Ben Franklin. Since only Ben could get away with stuff like that, Mr. Willett became a laughing stock. A year after his death (he ran himself through the chest with a sharp doorknob while getting dressed for work in the dark) the lawmakers, realizing that idiocy is what they did best, adopted the measure.

I think it’s also interesting to note that Germany, and then Britain were the first to use Daylight Saving Time. It’s just like us Americans to copy the Europeans! Europe has corn, we want corn. Europe has chocolate, we want chocolate. Europe has cheese, we want underwear. We believe that if it comes from Europe, no matter how lame-brained, it must be fashionable.

A European girl named Veronica was on the Mayflower. Archie and Bettie and the gang had on red and blue, but Veronica was into goth and had on black and white. Before you could say “Jughead, did you eat all the chocolate? Where did you put the wrappers? Did you bring clean underwear?” everyone else had bleached or died their clothing to be in with the trend.

It wasn’t the lack of technology that had camera’s photographing in black and white for decades… it was the lack of a new Veronica. Finally, in 1963 a Veronica, known as kids on acid, immerged wearing tie-die, and the rest is history.

I’m from Indiana. For years (ever) most of Indiana was on real time. Then, finally, they crawled back into the box and decided that they had been wrong not to follow the majority. Now we’re on fake time with everyone else. I guess since (just about) everyone else was doing it, it must be the right thing to do. Thank you, Indiana, for making us the “Mom, but my friend’s are all doing it” state.

Going with the majority actually makes all kinds of sense. I, personally, believe in parenting by the majority as well. We live in a crack neighborhood, though, so it’s hard to track down all the parents and get that majority vote. I finally told my kid, “Honey, if you aren’t sure whether or not to do something, look around. If just about everyone else is doing it.. it must be the right thing.” She’s now addicted to meth, a firm supporter of making pot legal, hands out free needles to heroine addicts, and watches re-runs of JAG.

I think it’s a little disturbing, but we’re working to see if we can find a majority of people who can help her change her mind about JAG. ~shudder~

I think we should do away with fake time, and just give everyone a year’s supply of glow sticks. I’d have to get majority approval, of course, but if I can get my kid to put down the crack pipe long enough to draw a cartoon showing how glow sticks can end global warming, I think we can get the votes!

The majority of my kids (one) says she’s not happy being portrayed as a crack addict or (GASP) a JAG supporter. This is a disclaimer. The proceeding article has only two sentences which are completely true. Neither of these sentences has anything to do with my daughter. The only things she is addicted to are chocolate and Phineas and Ferb.