Daylight Saving Time

Last Thursday night, I got only five hours of sleep. I blame Nano Poblano. All of those impassioned opinions, perfect word choices, and gutsy poems – you peppers really know how to inform, inspire, and interrupt a good night’s slumber. I was awake until 3 a.m. reading. Your titles were compelling and your photos so interesting. Even your badges were calling my name. I think I dreamt about peppers that night (er … morning).

Later that day (at 8 a.m.), I pulled myself out of bed because I had company coming over at 9. I rubbed my tired eyes, stumbled to the coffee machine, and pressed “brew” without putting water in first. After a couple of tries, I finally got everything (water, coffee, cup) arranged and ready. After my success making and drinking my first cup of java, I decided I was capable of vacuuming the living room rug.

All was going fine until I decided to try connecting one of the attachments. I couldn’t get the hoses and attachments to fit together. Everything seemed to be the wrong size; nothing would fit into anything else. Five minutes, four failed attempts, and three expletives later, I finally managed to figure it out. But then I tried turning the vacuum on again, and I couldn’t remember where the “on” switch was. (I’m not making this up.) This is not my normal operating mode. I do not have early onset Alzheimer’s. I just wasn’t running on all three bike tires.

I’m not complaining. I’ve always been a night owl, but lately I’m starting to see that maybe it’s not that healthy to skimp on sleep. I read an article about this the other day. The article said that you can never catch up on lost sleep. Once lost, it’s gone forever. If that’s the case, I figure I’ve lost 20,160 hours of sleep since graduating from college. That’s more than 2 years’ worth of lost time. Does that mean I’m really 2 years younger than I thought? Or am I older? I need another cup of coffee to figure that one out.

In the United States, we have something called “Daylight Saving Time” for part of every year. This government-imposed fiddling with our biological and actual clocks came about during World War I in an effort to save energy. In most parts of the country, clocks “spring ahead” one hour in the spring and “fall back” an hour in the fall. They are about to fall back this Sunday, Nov. 5, at 2 a.m. The rationale behind this widely accepted (but unpopular) practice is explained here.

I happen to live in Arizona, where Daylight Saving Time is not observed, unless you live on the Navajo Nation, where they do observe it. But then, if you live on the Hopi Reservation, which is completely surrounded by the Navajo Nation, you don’t observe Daylight Saving Time, which must be especially confusing. Arizona seems to celebrate confusion. After all, we have towns named Why, Surprise, and – believe it or not – Avenue B and C.

Since I live in Arizona, I won’t be “falling back” one hour this year. But while the rest of the country celebrates their extra hour of sleep, I’ll make myself content in the knowledge that even if I’d gotten the extra hour, it would not have made up for the 20,160 hours I’ve already lost.