Welcome to the first Monday of DST — Disrupted Sleepy Time. I hate Daylight Savings Time like I hate the Designated Hitter. SO. MUCH. They’re both unnatural and neither accomplishes the purpose for which they were respectively designed. Unless you can show me a designated hitter with a 1.000 batting average, and a pitcher whose batting average is .000, the DH rule does not “fix” the problem it was designed to fix. No. You may not argue this point with me. Besides this post is about DST, the scourge of modern life. One of them, anyway.

The first Monday after we, like a bunch of lumpy-headed lemmings, turn our clocks ahead one hour is widely known as “Sleepy Monday.” In my house we experience the less widely known “Psychotic Sunday” the day before “Sleepy Monday,” and, boy, is it a hoot. Most of the day is spent by me giving voice to how badly DST is going to mess up my life for the foreseeable future, and overusing phrases like, “It’s science, bitches.”

For this year’s insanity, our daughter was visiting from out of town. Let me tell you how things went. She and I stayed up together to watch Saturday Night Live which was hosted this week by Daniel Craig, with musical guest The Weekend. We quite enjoyed it. It ended at approximately 1:00 a.m., which thanks to DST now was magically 2:00 a.m. By the time we laughed again about our favorite skits, talked about a random music festival that was triggered by something I observed about The Weekend, loaded the dishwasher, and finished arguing about whether Daniel Craig is “classically handsome” or “ruggedly handsome” (the correct answer is “ruggedly handsome,” but you can’t tell my daughter anything), it was 2:00 a.m. according to my body, but 3:00 a.m. according to DST. The next day, I awoke at 10:00 a.m. which was really now 11:00 a.m. and who does that? Even on Sunday! Well, not me. But there I was, already struggling. Everything after that is a blur. I started out behind and will continue to be behind until some time in the middle of June. We ate dinner last night at 9:00 p.m. because I have made my internal clock useless by going along with this scheme, and didn’t even start wondering about dinner plans until it was too late.

And, yes, it is a scheme. In spite of the fact that it doesn’t save energy as was intended, in spite of the fact that it is the Roger Stone of clock-tampering (nobody likes it, it’s whackadoodle, and it should go to prison), and in spite of the fact that it wreaks havoc on us all , we’re keeping it. I’m so mad about this goofiness I went in search of answers. WHY do we keep doing something so awful? I even laughed to myself while pondering what could be behind this stubborn continuation of this abomination, and thought, “Killing people’s circadian rhythms to own the libs … I mean, who’s lobbying for DST?” Well, I’m not laughing now. According to author and lecturer Michael Downing, we aren’t saving energy OR money because DST actually results in us giving more money to gas companies (we drive more because we’re out more), the golf industry, outdoor furniture, grill, and home improvement companies, etc. and they DO LOBBY to keep DST because, of course they do. They don’t care about our productivity, the fact that we feel terrible, the disruption of our natural rhythms, or anything else. It’s all about the money. Even at my most cynical, I was not prepared to believe that DST was just another temple for the worship of Mammon. My health for your bottom line doesn’t seem like a good deal, and yet we keep making it.

Government of the few, by the few, for the few strikes again. Expletive! How can it be past 5:30 already?????? I HATE THIS!!!!!!!

Until next time, thanks for reading.