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.
