Author’s Note: The following column may contain obscene levels of snarky-ness, pointless and illogical ramblings and graphic depictions of various college unpleasantries; in short, you should probably read it. On another note, the author appreciates your undying love and admiration in advance; however, he requests that fans refrain from plastering the Collegian website with rave reviews of his work. Please address all fan mail to “His Majesty, The Illustrious and Honorable One.” No address necessary. Cash “donations” are, as always, much appreciated.
First and foremost, to those of you who turned to the Op-Ed section on this fine Monday, hoping to find my latest politically inspired, poorly-written bore of a column, I’m terribly sorry. There will be plenty more in the weeks to come.
By now, you have hopefully realized that daylight saving was yesterday. If not, you should probably stop reading this. Well, actually, seeing as you’re now an hour late for a 50-minute class, you have nothing better to do. Feel free to check my math, but if my 5th grade arithmetic skills are still up to par, you aren’t going to make it.
As the saying goes, “Spring ahead, fall back.” Well I’m happy to announce that in the spirit of Mohandas Gandhi and this guy, I have nonviolently resisted. My clocks have been set forward, and with my eyes set on Friday and an immovable desire to do absolutely nothing in the week before Spring Break, I have set out into the storm.
I have hated daylight saving time since the 27th time it was explained to me. And no, 28 will not change that. Although I’m not entirely sure of the precise cause of this hatred – well, yes I am, it’s called an alarm clock – I believe it begins bi-annually around the time of the unavoidable “does this mean I get an extra hour of sleep, or do I have to get up earlier?” conversation. I simply hate the idea of complicating the notion of time more than is absolutely necessary. I have a difficult enough time keeping the time without it getting switched around on me. Furthermore, the event of daylight saving time means that my day will be spent having people, news reports, websites, etc., attempt to explain daylight saving to me yet again. As if 27 attempts weren’t enough.
Daylight saving time costs the United States over $100,000,000,000 per year in lost hours of productivity, time wasted reprogramming alarm clocks and microwaves and missed appointments and meetings. That figure, for those who were wondering, was calculated by taking the number 100,000,000,000, placing a $ symbol before it, and inserting it into the previous sentence. As, mentioned previously, feel free to check my math.
Curious as to the origins of this bizarre tradition (or perhaps I should say, giving in to my desire to further procrastinate), I decided to invoke the help of my dear friend and GPA savior, Google, to help assuage my thirst for said knowledge. As it turns out, changing the clocks was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin in a 1784 essay legitimately called “Turkey vs. Eagle, McCauley Is My Beagle.” Why anyone would take advice from such an oddly-titled essay, I haven’t the faintest idea. Granted, Franklin was a pretty smart dude, and during World War I, daylight saving time was put into practice to save electricity (which would otherwise be used to light people’s homes at night). After the war, this tradition was never reverted.
Perhaps a sort of peaceful resistance is in order. I for one am willing to adapt my approach. Imagine if the roughly 27,000 students at UMass all decided to ignore daylight savings time. Now that would get someone’s attention! (Note to the administration: The author is speaking on an exclusively “theoretical” level. He does not endorse any form of student rebellion whatsoever. Furthermore, he wishes to express his wholehearted support of the continuous construction on campus as it fosters creativity and ingenuity among the student body as they navigate their way to classes.)
For now, my approach to surviving daylight saving is quite simple. Monday is close to Tuesday. Tuesday is one day away from Thursday, which is almost Friday, at which point I’ll be boarding a flight to Colorado to enjoy some much deserved powder.
Five days till break, UMass. We got this.
Makai McClintock is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
