...Dear William Willett

According to Wikipedia your only notable contribution to the earth was Daylight Savings Time. I understand it was because of golf. Really, golf? How would you like it if I imposed my wanting to sleep late on the rest of the world. I prefer to rise sometime around noon. I selflessly realize that this is not practical for the rest of the world. Therefore, I buck it up and deal. You however, not liking your golf game to be cut short decided that twice a year we should significantly alter our sleeping patterns.

Of course you trotted out the almighty dollar as your reason. You might be interested to know that most modern studies say there is little economic benefit for doing it. In fact, when it was implemented in Indiana, electricity consumption increased by 4%.

I know we don't normally follow the trends in Kazakhstan, but they abolished the practice of changing clocks twice a year because of health complications arising from the practice. Suicide rates among men are highest following the Spring Forward, and the heart attack rate is significantly higher for three days following a time change.

Also Mr. Willett, we have to pay people to change all of those clocks. They've not yet figured a way to get the Big Ben's of the world onto the atomic clock. So, every spring, and every fall, it's some guy's job to make sure that all the clocks in an office building are correct. This may not have been too much of a problem back in your day, but today, there is a clock on EVERYTHING. The stove, the microwave, the dvd player, his and her alarm clocks, in the car, the gps I use to track my running. EVERYTHING. My entire yesterday was consumed with, "is that really the time?" and running to check the cable box. Was this really the best use of my time? NO.

I suppose I could make it a little easier by getting his and her atomic alarm clocks, but we like our daylight alarm clock, and it's old school. Also, is it really practical for all of us to throw out perfectly good alarm clocks just to go atomic? NO. And yes, there are outlets that pipe in the correct time, like the cable box and the computer, but when we got the bright idea to expand DST it cost us $500 million to upgrade the software in different applications that make it possible.

I might be a little more upset about this than I should be, but no one has informed the trips that things have changed the last two days. Boog put himself to bed at 7:00 last night as opposed to 8:00 meaning he woke up at 5:00 instead of 6:00 - being a sleep til noon type, 5:00 is not a number I like to see. And if you know nothing else about my kids, know this, if one is up they all are. They get lonely and bored and don't care what time it is.

So, until the Idaho potato lobbyists can convince Congress once again that extending DST longer and longer, to the point where there is no Standard Time, I will be a grump a dump twice a year.

But seriously, anybody who wants to play golf longer, just get to work earlier, and leave earlier. No one has ever been fired for getting to work early and completing their tasks for the day early. Please leave the rest of the world out of it.