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Monday, March 15, 2010

Have You Checked Your Pockets?

Central Daylight Savings Time has struck again; and as in years prior, another hour has been taken from us.

Never mind that we’ll get it back in the fall.

It’s not the same.

I worry about that hour. Will it be okay? Where has it gone?

Maybe it’s with the other things gone from my home: one fuzzy blue slipper absent since the locally attended and suspiciously named International Chili Cook-Off, the mysterious disappearance of a 40-watt bulb from a living room lamp.

Or perhaps that hour’s gone the way of my often misplaced and then rediscovered faith in humanity and I will find it on the bus, perhaps in a stranger’s smile.

Either way, my concern over the disappearance of an hour of my life via government decree – as opposed to, say, the loss of an hour due to oversleeping or drunken misadventure – is nothing in comparison to the enjoyment of the extra hour of sunlight.

The snow is gone; the sun is out; and Minneapolis needs only the gully-washing rainstorm that will sweep the streets and lawns clean of the dirty, gritty reminders of the inconvenience of the last six months to bring on the glorious green of spring.

Nevertheless, it’s all a big head game, this Daylight Savings Time. The day’s as long – and as short – as it ever was.

Still. I wish my lost hour the best of luck, wherever it is and hope it remembers that spare time will always have a home with me.

31 comments:

f8hasit said...

Can we share? I'd like spare time to come visit me sometime as well. It's been so damn long since I've seen it, I may not recognize it when it arrives.
:-)

Pearl said...

Spare time looks suspiciously like the time sometimes used to wipe down the inside of the fridge. :-) Spare time has many disguises!

Kavi said...

Oh have you looked in the 'lost and found' boxes !?! This is one thing that perhaps will be found the next year around !

:)

Simply Suthern said...

Spare time is the same as spare change, big foot and the loch ness monster. It's a myth you hope to discover some day. As for you Pearl I think yours was used heading to the airport.

mapstew said...

Yeah, now you made me think about the inside of the fridge! :¬)

xxx

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

The only thing that you will find on the bus is ebola and heartache (in that order). That is what you get for inviting that lost hour into your home without proper vetting. Thats a bad hour, a dirty hour. It doesn't even wipe it's feet on the mat before entering. What kind of person lets an hour like that into her home? Oh yeh. Never mind. Move on. Nothing to see here.

sage said...

so much for an extra hour of daylight (or a shifted day), as it's been cloudy and rainy here, melting the snow but exposing the dog poop.

L.C.T. said...

Haha, our clocks haven't changed yet. But cute thoughts!

Ms Sparrow said...

That hour has faded into the same void where all the money lost on the stock market went. It floats around in a nether-world with all those billions of dollars that went pffttt!

Krëg said...

Why does it take thrice the amount of caffeine to mitigate one hour's difference? It doesn't seem right.

anon said...

Well, we could all always move to Saskatchewan, there are no lost hours in Sask, the farmers simply won't put up with it.

Roshni said...

lol Kreg!!!

Anna Lefler said...

I think I saw your lost hour last night. It was shuffling down my street in an overcoat, hat pulled low over its eyes and muttering, "Pearl...Pearl."

I've got feeling it'll be back.

:-D Anna

P.S. Can't wait to meet you at the Bombeck conference!

Anonymous said...

Pearly Q~
I just found out those ARIZONA people don't participate in Daylight Savings....what a bunch of crap! Isn't that like seceding from the union?! Next they'll be flying a flag with clock on it that only has 11 numbers.
Why...I've got a good mind to stomp over there and give them the 'what for'...
We should all have to suffer together, dang it!
=]
On a side note, Hawaii doesn't participate in Daylight Savings either...but I think we should cut them some slack, because they're all shipwrecked on that island...poor souls. LOL.
=]

Patricia said...

A little-known fact about Daylight Savings Time. It's actually Daylight Saving Time. No "s". It's not a savings account. :) Thought you should know.

Unknown said...

Okay, you know I never thought about that before. I mean 32 years of this daylight stuff and I never thought to wonder exactly where this hour goes.

Oh god, now I'm going to spend the rest of the freaked out about the missing hour.

Simply Suthern said...

Not a savings account? You mean I cant save these up and take a free day off in 8 yrs?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

...is too Patricia.

I'm telling mom....

Mom! Patricia won't let me use my imaginary s's....and you said I could...make her stop!!!!

The Jules said...

I think I found your lost time.

I got talked at by my elderly neighbour about her conjunctivitis for about three minutes, and it felt like an hour anyway.

She's obviously some sort of temporal deity who bends the very fabric of space and time to her whim.

With scratchy red eyes.

Lo said...

...."Or perhaps that hour’s gone the way of my often misplaced and then rediscovered faith in humanity and I will find it on the bus, perhaps in a stranger’s smile.".....

Thanks for that beautiful line......
pure poetry. I not only enjoy you, I appreciate you.

savannah said...

we lost an hour? i must have been asleep when it happened, sugar! *snickering* or drunk! xoxoxo

sheila said...

That hour is sleeping until the first week of November, lol. I'm kinda glad, now my clock in the car is finally back to the right time! lol

Kevin Musgrove said...

The lost hour has gone the way of the slipper. One chili cook-off too many and it's been eaten by some drunk or other. Smothered in jalapenos and don't-look-too-close-it's-probably-not-coriander.

Jeanie said...

I will miss that hour until it reappears sometime next fall, or at least until next Tuesday or Wednesday when my brain finally adjusts.

Nancy/BLissed-Out Grandma said...

I'm with Sheila...the clock in my car will tell the actual time for the next...whatever number of months until we change back to standard time.

ruthibel said...

I know right? Spare time and spare change, lol.

Jayne Martin said...

See, I'm a morning person, so even though I'm happy to see that extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day, why did it have to be taken from my beloved morning? Why couldn't they have carved out 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.? Nobody would've even noticed it was gone.

Gadjo Dilo said...

Ahh, "spare time will always have a home with me", that's almost a Cole Porter lyric :-)

Tempo said...

Here in OZ it's the government that taxes our lost hour, theyve got a warehouse full of lost hours collected from us all....and we want them back..damnit! (got a bit carried away there)

Happy Hour...Somewhere said...

Since I start work at 4 in the morning, that extra hour of sunshine at the end of the day chaps my hide. It is hard to justify jumping into bed at 8 as it is, but at least it was dark and I had an excuse for being in my jammies that early. Now, I look like I got grounded.

Einstein said the faster you go, the slower time goes, so I think we should blame him for that missing hour...that or we are traveling warp speed and don't know it. I call dibs on the USS Enterprise.