The Savings Time

I love the arbitrariness of Daylight Savings Time.  Like national events that don’t really fall on certain presidents’ or civil rights activists’ actual birthdays, Daylight Savings Time has an almost legendary air.  It’s a fluid concept historically, one that ebbs and flows depending on the whims of those in power at any given moment—not unlike Turkmenistan’s first President for Life, who renamed all the months just because he could.  He renamed April after his sainted mother, Gurbansoltan.  He also re-named the days of the week.  My personal fave is Hosgun or Favorable Day, which used to be Wednesday.  Good luck booking a flight to Turkmenistan. 

I’m thinking of writing a thank-you note to 2005’s US Congress who passed the Energy Policy Act, which moved DST three weeks earlier beginning in 2007, from Gurbansoltan to Nowruz—formerly March-- and one week later to Sanjar—formerly November.  The theory was that we as a nation would use less energy to light and heat our homes if it were not so dark so early in the evening.  But, like the nation of rogues that we are, Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Arizona, don’t pay it no mind. “Feh, to Daylight Savings Time,” I can hear them collectively saying.  Although how one gets the top elected officials of Arizona and Samoa in a room together I’ll never know but I’d like to be a fly on the wall at that brunch.

I, for one, believe that Daylight Savings Time is misnamed.  Do we really feel like we’re ‘saving’ anything—really?  It’s like some parent has dressed up broccoli by calling them ‘tiny trees from Little Land’ in order to get us to eat our vegetables.  I don’t know about you but I’m asleep at 2am most nights.  But I am a saver by nature.  Why, just the other Favorable Day, I offered my girlfriend these super fancy Italian cookies to have with our tea when she stopped by.  Actually, I didn’t offer them, she discovered the large tin of Lazzaroni Amaretti Di Saronno cookies in the back of my uppermost shelf of my dry food cupboard.

She said, “What are these?  Oh, my goodness, I love these.  Can we eat these?”  She’s taller than me and doesn’t stand on ceremony.

“Sure, get them down,”  I said and opened the tin.  It was still half full.

“Are you saving these for some occasion?”

“No,” I said.

“Are you saving them for someone more worthy than me?”

“Clearly.  But since you were able to reach them, you are now worthy.”

My girlfriend reached in and chose one of the beautifully wrapped duets of cookies in the delicate pastel inscribed paper that sounds like rustling taffeta.  She unwrapped one and smelled it. 

“These are bad.”

“What?!” I said.  I loved these cookies.  They practically melted in my mouth—so subtle, so perfectly sweet with that touch of almond.  I was heartsick.

“We have to throw them out.”  She was right.  She added, “What were you waiting for?  You save too much.  Your life is passing you buy and meanwhile fancy Italian cookies are going bad right under your nose.  This is a crime.  You could literally be jailed for this in Italy.”

I was speechless.  All I could do was stare at all those tumbling little bundles as she shook them into the garbage.  Probably fifteen or so of them gone.  My girlfriend continued to lecture me like only a good friend can, “You’ve got to burn the fancy candles, eat the good cookies and spend the gift certificates.  This is your life.  Stop waiting for the right occasion or the right person to drop by.  You’re the right person and right now is the right occasion.”

“Okay, okay,” I said.  “I’ve got some champagne I’ve had chilling for about a year in the basement fridge, you want to pop it open?”

“It’s ten in the morning.”

“Right.  Good point,” I said, “I promise to eat the good cookies from now on.  And stop saving so much.” 

She was right, of course.  Maybe we should rename Daylight Savings Time.  Maybe we should call it Sleeptime Wasting Night.  Or Extra Christine Time, after my mother, the famous martyr.  Either way, it’s time that should be well spent-- like having an impromptu cup of tea with an old friend.

I sipped the warming tea then remembered something else I was saving.  I leaned down toward the floor and reached deep into the pots and pans cabinet and pulled out a bag of special treats.  Turning the clear zip-lock over for display, I said, “Please choose whatever you like.  There is no one more worthy than you, my dear friend.”  She rolled her eyes and shook her head then reached into the bag for a piece of my son’s Halloween candy.