There has been a 6900% increase in the amount of alarm clock violence this week…
It’s the season premiere you’ve been waiting a whole entire week for! Welcome to the 
beginning of Season Two of my Prompt the Squirrel series… MMXVI style! The Nest dipped into its nonexistent Redbubble shop funds and hired a professional movie poster maker to add that nifty II to the logo to make everything legit! So far I’ve gotten 12 prompts from my faithful readers out there… a big thank you so far to everyone on this year’s waiting list! There’s still plenty of time for me to badger the rest of you to do the hipster thing and donate a prompt for PTS2. If you haven’t entered yet, go here and use the contact form to get in on the fun all the cool kids are having. I’ll be more than happy to do this Friday thing for as long as you keep inspiring me with your suggestions!
And who doesn’t love a squirrel who is more than happy?
For the very first prompt of PTS’s sophomore season, I chose a timely submission from Quirky Girl… a blogger I stumbled across last year while looking for unicorns. Yes, that statement is an actual fact. True to her name, her weekly posts are quite warped and humorous and you should definitely check her out! So, what did she ask of this squirrel with her one wish?
How much does daylight savings suck? Let us count the ways…
Boy, we’re gonna need a hell of a lot of fingers and toes for this exercise!!!
You can use this one after I’m done pollenating it!
I’ve actually written before about the unnecessary biannual mindfuck known as Daylight Savings Time in the US and Summer Time in other places… and am more than on record with how much of a useless waste of effort and stress it is on our nation. Not surprisingly, the concept of trying to manipulate time is rather modern…. having first been proposed a little over 100 years ago, and not enacted on a nationwide basis anywhere until Germany and Austria-Hungary adopted it as a wartime measure in 1916. Heck, our need to have standardized time has only existed for less than a couple of centuries now. That dates back to the invention of railroad as a mode of transportation in the 19th century, as early railroad companies needed a universal concept of marking time so that passengers could note how behind schedule they were running…
Mussolini would not be impressed.
Well, if we are going to count the ways DST is like a concrete enema, we may as well start with the obvious….
Reason Number One: We Got Rhythm
How do you humans handle trying to fool the sun like this?
Even the most impulsive and non-habitual people in the world unconsciously live life to the beat of our inner circadian rhythms. Yanking an hour out of March to duct tape to November is the perfect way to bring all the joys of jet lag to even those who never leave the house. Since the magical DST resetting times fall in the middle of the night on Sunday mornings, it’s our sleep patterns that take the biggest hit. And I can assure you that for those of us who regularly work during the time change, adjusting to magical 23 and 25 hour days is no easier… because even us overnight shifters have our routines, and that loss or gain of an hour is going to weasel its way into our life somewhere along the line to remind us why manmade concepts of time suck ass… especially when they are conceived and enforced by government officials we mistakenly elected…
Maybe we should bring back the monarchy…
Reason Number Two: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
And does anybody really care? Yes, we do. Kinda the whole reason we came up hours and minutes and seconds is so we can keep track of the duration of things. That’s really fucking hard to do when 1:59 suddenly becomes 3:00, or even better, when it just becomes 1:00 all over again…
Yeah, tell me about it…
I have worked almost every Saturday night since 1998, and have only had one time change night off in the last 18 years. Since I am an hourly grunt, I have to punch a clock… a clock that has no idea how long I actually worked on those nights. This breakdown in timekeeping logic makes HR people who haven’t had to manually keep track of working hours since dinosaurs quit punching timecards have to somehow figure out how to properly credit our time and pay us appropriately. Needless to say, this rarely works out right. The frightening thing of course is how everything from your car to your toilet to your iron lung runs on computerized technology now. While we freaked out over the Y2K fauxpocalypse 16 years ago, we experience mini-Y2K’s twice a year thanks to DST rendering our timekeeping devices to be blithering idiots…
Or maybe our idiocy is just rubbing off on the machines…
Reason Number Three: We’re All Fucking Time Slaves
The main reason Daylight Savings Time even exists is because people have a preference for wanting more daylight hours in the evening. Having the sun still be out at 8 PM when we might want to sit out on the patio and share our nuts with the squirrels makes much more sense than having it up and shining at 5 AM and disturbing your sleep through the cat-slashed blinds.
Good question, Nancy!
Why in the name of Your Deity of Choice should we give a rat’s ass what “time” the sun is out? For countless millennia, humans have lived their knuckle-dragging lives around the rising and the setting of the sun. Pretty much all of our animal friends still keep time the old fashioned way as well. If we’re so concerned about the fact that we sleep away too many sunny hours in the morning, why not just adjust our schedules as the year progresses? Hell, one of the trends in the workplace is “summer hours” that borrow Friday hours and distribute them throughout the week… so why not adjust work and school times gradually throughout the year to account for changing sunrise times?
It’s time for Warren G to regulate!
Warren G. Harding is not on Mount Rushmore, and his scandal filled, two year Presidency is not looked upon highly by political historians. But the man knew what a fucking crock of shit Daylight Savings Time was. When his predecessor Woodrow Wilson tried (and failed) twice to veto the end of the US’s temporary DST due to World War I, Harding offered no resistance at all when he took office, and in fact ordered that all government employees in DC would have to work from 8-4 during the summer rather than inconvenience the entire nation with more clock winding. Forget Herbert Hoover, we could use a man like Warren G. Harding again…
Stifle yerself, Evil.
Reason Number Four: The Clock Shop Operator’s Nightmare
Here is a real search term that I received on my blog in 2014 that I answered thusly in that year’s Sandy Awards…
did we lose a couple of minutes during this year’s daylight saving time change? – Yes we did… the couple of minutes it took us to set all of our fucking clocks an hour back.
Man…. fuck this shit.
While computers and smartphones will reset themselves even if we do forget to check the batteries in our smoke detectors and vibrators, our $10 digital alarm clocks and the creepy cat clock with the eyes that go back and forth you inherited from Grandma will not. Nor will that wristwatch you’re wearing, if you’re all into quaint stuff like that. What a major pain in the goddamn ass to have to go through twice a year just so some plus-foured asshole can enjoy a 7:30 PM round of golf…
Reason Number Five: We Love The Night Life
You know who one of the major opponents of DST is? Businesses that make their money after dark. By pushing the sunset time an hour later in the day, many people are going to start getting tuckered out by the time the neon starts lighting up the night. TV Networks see their ratings plummet during the summer for reasons other than their shitty reality shows. Is it a coincidence that drive-in movie theaters started to become dinosaurs after universal DST was implemented in the US in 1966? And what about the venerable and respected adult entertainment industry? Do you want to cut into this woman’s profits just to save a damn kilowatt or two?
Support your local stripper. Repeal Daylight Savings Time!
Reason Number Six: What In The Hell Are We Saving Anyway?
DST’s existence is often justified by the massive amount of energy it helps save by forcing the sunlight into more of your waking hours. Too bad most of the studies that have been done in the DST era say that’s a steaming load of bullshit. Despite the fact that every DST change in America has been tied to an energy policy, those laws end up being about as effective as any others Congress passes because the facts say we end up using the same amount, if not even more energy regardless of how we manipulate our clocks. Throw in the well known fact that there are more vehicular accidents, suicides and possum attacks in the week following Daylight Savings Time going into effect, and just how is DST actually making our world a better place?
The future we have to look forward to thanks to Daylight Savings Time.
Reason Number Seven: People Are Fucking Stupid
Over the weekend, there was an ad that was airing on Mecca Radio advising customers on how they could enjoy their “extra hour of daylight.” Sadly, many people really do believe that DST magically keeps the sun above the horizon for an extra 60 minutes each day rather than just timefuck us into actually being awake during more of the daylight hours. You only need to look at your local TV listings or the latest Presidential candidate poll to see how stupid Americans already are…. do we really need our pathetic timekeeping practices to add to our Mensa resumes?
Even our toys are mocking us.
I’m sure there are many more reason why Daylight Savings Time needs to die an excruciating, torturous, bloody and gory death… but my word count is already getting way up there, and you just might need that extra hour of daylight to actually finish this post. So thanks again to Quirky Girl for helping kick off the second season of Prompt the Squirrel with this most excellent suggestion, and I’ll spring forward to answer another one of your prompts next Friday!
Being diurnal is so overrated…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I hate this time-changing… I wonder why we still have to do it…. like that lemmings who jump from a cliff just because they can…
Or because they were pushed over the cliff by heartless Disney executives for dramatic effect. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but we’re being pushed over the cliff by our officials who say we have to change the time…
I hate DST…….I think aliens have something to do with it – I find it convenient to blame aliens (generic aliens of course) for most anything that MAKES NO SENSE. Say – is it just me or does that cowboy guy in the “Dumbasses” movie clip above remind you of Darren from the old “Bewitched” series????????
Pam the Alien
LOL! And definitely more like Dick York, and not Dick Sergeant. I hate it when they switch Dicks on us…
Don’t we all just hate that???
ody…..a grate post by yur dad anda grate suggestionz by Quirky Girl ….uz catz noe day lite savinz time sux… werse than de vacuum masheen….we looze an hour oh sleep… and R lives… & dont get it bak til november…….& we dunno bout ewe; but frank lee we find it hard ta sneek round at ten o clox at nite when itz spozed ta bee dark,,,but like now itz broad day lite & everee one & de nayborz can see what de je zuz iz goin on
faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…….we shuld all bee like arizona
heerz two a temperate ocean bass kinda week oh end ♥♥♥♥
We don’t get that 10:00 daylight where I live because me and Ody are on the eastern side of a time zone and too far south for extreme daylight time in the summer. I’m all for that Arizona thing… one time all year round!
oh…N biskit…R bad….we forgetted ta send waves two ewe az well ~~~~~~~~~~~~ happee week oh end two all ….N yea ……day lite savins time still sux 🙂
So, you don’t like DST? Is that what I’m reading here? Just want to be clear…
I hope I wasn’t too subtle. I’m not a fan of beating around the bush…
THANK YOU! You’ve covered pretty much all of the things I feel about daylight savings time but can’t put into words when someone is like, “oh, thank God daylight savings time is starting so I don’t have to drive home in the dark anymore.” Like it wouldn’t be light for that drive home in just a matter of weeks anyway and like it really matters to me that it’s light out while I’m eating and cleaning up from dinner. DST totally pisses me off! I don’t know why we allow it to continue. If the capitol building weren’t so far away I would grab a pitchfork and gather up some other sleep-deprived grumps to stand outside the gates demanding this stupid practice be put to an end.
I love the first picture depicting the 6900% increase in alarm clock violence! 🙂
The driving home in the dark thing is funny, because DST causes it to be the opposite for me. Now it’s dark again at 7:00 when I get off in the morning… and I’m only a few weeks away from the glorious days of having the sun come up right over the road on the way home. I’d miss that altogether if it weren’t for stupid DST! Hand me a pitchfork! Or better yet, maybe we should use another yard implement…
Yes! They gave that “extra” hour of daylight to use hoes so we should use them for the only thing they’re good for these days…threatening politicians. 🙂
Nicely done! 😀
First of all, let me start off by highlighing my enormous gratitude for unicorns. They are awesome, and so are you.
Arizona was the 3rd of 4 states where I’ve somehow already managed to live. It was a blissful 15 years of not having to put up with this idiotic, ass-backward practice. Granted, it is one of the very few things Arizona has managed to get right (for a state with a grossly underfunded eduction system, that’s saying a lot). Still, it gets major brownie points in my book for keeping at least this one aspect of life uncomplicated.
After a little over a year in No Man’s Land, I’m still readjusting to daylight savings. And I realized something screwy in the process. Like you, I work crazy shifts. So when my phone’s alarm was set for 2:30am last Sunday, I discovered that my phone is clearly not as smart as it would like me to believe.
That’s right, 2:30am was sucked up into a bottomless black hole, and my phone made no attempt to compensate for the loss.
Oh, daylight savings, how I loathe your ludicrous ways.
Ha! If your phone suddenly goes off late at night during the first weekend of November, you’ll know you have a smartassphone! Man, you really gave me dandy topic to work with! I’ve already thought of about 10 more things I had wanted to add to this post, but forgot. Which may be a good thing since who wants to read a 5,000 word post about how we cheat the clock?
Double Whammy year with DST AND LEAP YEAR! The Time Corps are screwing with us again. They think we don’t notice, but I know it’s all their fault. With their stupid time wormholes and messing around with going back and forth on the continuum …
Now Leap Day I love simply because it’s a day created out of nowhere and at least still follows the rule that every day is supposed to have exactly 24 hours. If we were taking a day from October and throwing it in February every four years, then it would perturb me…
I hope not TOO much change!! 😀
Change is not always good!
HATE DST. Some lawmakers are saying dont do the fall back part. We are already doing 8 months out of the year. Numbet 6..yes ..
The only thing is hate about CST is the fact that during the winter, day ends at 4pm.
I read that some countries use DST as their STANDARD time, and then still spring forward an hour for summer, putting them 2 hours ahead of where they should be. It’s absolutely nuts. Why are we playing games with the time? If it’s such a good thing to have the “post work” hours have as much daylight as possible, why not just move “business hours” from 4AM to noon?
I would love to spend a year in the northern part of the country just to witness the extreme sunrise/sunset times around the solstices. 270 miles southwest of you, our earliest sunset is usually about 4:40 PM…
That is crazy about the other countries. Wtf…Daylight standard savings time…ugh. I think technically our earliest is 419 or something like that. It is dark at 4. Due to the wonderful *gag* DST…if you migrate further north, you will find light as day conditions at 10 pm…that was quite a shock the first time I experienced it.
I thought Harold Reynolds was nuts when he was talking about how it’d still be light out after night games in Seattle. Then I looked up their sunset times in the summer. What a difference a little latitude makes…
I agree with Nancy, Reason number five is possibly the real answer. The answer is often “who is making money out of this?” I haaate it and it annnnoys me and it is stuuuuupid! 😀
Retailers (Hi Mecca!)are one of the biggest proponents of DST because supposedly more evening sunlight = more after work shopping. One other constant among DST supporters seems to be golfing, since the later the sunlight, the more you can play. Woodrow Wilson’s futile attempt to keep DST after WWI was due to his golfing habit, and the fellow from New Zealand who first had the idea for DST also wanted it for later tee times. I never cared much for golfers even before I learned of this fact!
Sorry to hijack. I’ve heard about the golfing. As an outlier, I do my shopping after dark…
so we all suffer in our jocks so a few golfers can get a few more rounds in? Makes sense. 😀
So I’m going out on a limb and guessing you’re not a fan of Summer Time? 🙂
Ah well, any excuse to wheel out the art masterpiece “busty lady in pile of cash”.
If she hates daylight time, then I hate daylight time!
I know you’re always looking for more reasons not to have children. Well, DST is another reason not to. As tough as it is for adults to adjust, kids do not deal well with the change AT ALL
I can imagine just going by my cats’ behavior. For the first week after DST started, my cats wondered why in the hell I was coming home from work an hour early and didn’t pounce on me as soon as I walked in to get fed…
The only advantage to the hour change is that I get a wee bit more sleep in the mornings for a couple of weeks, because I’m then not being woken up by the sun. But given that sunrise without British Summer Time here in the northern parts of England would be something like 3am, it has its advantages. I just wish it could be done on a fixed date, or given a bank holiday all of its own or something, so that to recover from the time shift, we all get a complusory day of rest.
Reblogged this on Evil Squirrel's Nest and commented:
I generally don’t reblog my own posts…. but of the many sarcastic rants I’ve reeled off on The Nest over the years, this may be my favorite. So in honor of our biannual clock games, here’s my anti-ode to Daylight Savings Time again! Please enjoy it again while you try to recover from last night’s government mandated jet lag…