Breaking The Rules With Daylight Saving Time
November 2nd, 2009
Email this article to a friend
Here’s a true story about how daylight saving time can point out overly conforming tendencies. (Note that it’s not “daylight savings time” – it’s about conservation of daylight, not a clearance event.)
The newspaper said it very clearly. “At 2 AM, you should set your clocks back one hour.” And so, she set her alarm for 2 AM, waking up in the middle of the night to set back every clock in her house at the scheduled time.
Yes, she followed the rules to the letter. But was that the best way to do it? Would the time cops have found out if she had changed her clocks the night before, or the morning after?
Not everyone is a natural rule breaker, but if you can’t take the plunge with your own clocks, perhaps that’s something to work on.
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:51 am
Good point, indeed.
I solved it by having my alarm being radio controlled so it updates automatically and the computer/phone clocks does it automatically too – so the only thing I noticed was 1 more hour of sleep.
Oh, we actually changed DST over a week ago.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:35 am
My teenage son used this excuse to come home an hour late on Saturday night. Apparently his TMobile phone automatically set its own time back an hour around 10 pm. It broke all the rules.
Otherwise, that example of yours would make a great blonde joke!
November 4th, 2009 at 7:41 am
@ Klaus, my cell phone was actually the last one to be updated – it didn’t change on its own right away and I was like, um, hello?
@ Christie, either TMobile is a bit too eager to fall back, or your son is very clever! I don’t know that person’s hair color – it’s a friend of a friend.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:59 am
She’d have to keep getting up every time it turned 2 am to set the clock back, to adhere to the instructions. Or maybe she was a programmer and added a flag in there so she’d only go through the loop once.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:09 am
@ Christie, did you hear about the blonde who got stuck in an infinite loop with her shampoo? Apparently the bottle said “lather, rinse, repeat.”
November 6th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Oh yes there is some tricky and deceptive language on those shampoo bottles! I have one shampoo that is labeled as, “For Blonde Hair.” I notice the infinite loop language is not on the label of that one. Perhaps that is the only thing that sets that shampoo apart from shampoos for all hair colors?