It's October, time to pull out your jackets, bring the plants in from the porch, and try to remember when it is you're supposed to readjust with all your clocks. All your clocks: alarm clocks, microwave clocks, stove clocks, and VCR clocks (hopefully you have a child around who knows how to work those things – HA! a VCR joke – bet you haven't heard one of those in a while). All this clock fussing is of course required by daylight savings time, another genius mandate from the Federal Government, but more on that later. First, I would like to debunk a few falsitudes about the origins of daylights savings.

The number one ill-credible reason is that daylight savings was invented is because farmer (you know, the same people that bring us corn and wheat). “Why,” I ask. “You know, so they can get up earlier and do more work,” I'm told. “Oh,” I say. This is the point that I usually leave the conversation. Farmers today do what farmers eight thousand years ago did, they work around the sun. So, let's scratch that idea.

The number two ill-credible explanation has something to do with the Germans and/or World War I. The Germans fooled around with their clocks, and everything they do is great (except for starting wars they can win, I suppose), so why don't we do the same as them? I like to counter this reasoning with the 'if everyone jumped off a bridge' logic. To which the other person will respond with some bit about keeping factories open longer or getting more work done. I don't lend much credence to that. Why couldn't factory workers making valuable war goods just do what farmers do and get out of bed earlier?

The most recently hatched answer, and coming in at number three on the ill-credible list, deals with energy efficiency. I hear that keeping the sun out later in the evening makes it unnecessary to turn on electric lights at home. Sure, I can see that. But doesn't daylight savings time keep the summer sun out to somewhere around 9pm (depending on what side of the time zone you're on) which forces people to keep their air conditioners on longer? Hmm, light bulbs or air conditioners, which uses more electricity?

As I've stated, the real reason for the institution of daylight savings time is The Federal Government. You know, the same people that brought you Prohibition and the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thanks.

I, for one, am all for wasting any daylight there is. Have that sun up and blazing when I fall out of bed and turn it out as I'm brushing my teeth and putting on my pajamas. I think the whole daylight savings idea is terrible.

I used to look forward daylight savings. One day each year, in the fall, I would get an extra hour of sleep. Righteous.

No longer though. I now have a young daughter that tells time like a farmer. The sun has no bearing on her sleep schedule, and being that my daughter has not yet mastered changing her diaper or fixing herself breakfast, I must drag myself out of bed whenever she declares it morning, often well before the sun is out.

That bonus hour in the fall? Not for me. Now that hour is a sixty minute appreciation of just how dark everything is without the sun.

A recent history lesson: It used to be that the newspaper, radio, and television (and every busybody at work) would tell me to monkey with my clock sometime in April and again in early October (or was it September?). This sort of worked out with the change in seasons and arc of the sun and all that. But no longer!

Now the Federal Government has decreed that we all monkey with our clocks in November (November!) and remonkey with them in, what is it now?, February. Why all the changes? Has our government of, by, and for the people bought into Retailer's Hype! ? You know, the same Hype! that puts out Christmas trees in September, tells us summer is over around July 28th, and begins pushing Valentines Day as soon as we hang up our new calendars. Please don't believe the Hype! Federal Government, I need my sun back.

Don't hold your breath waiting for change though, this is same Federal Government that brought us Selective Service and digital television.

Is the situation hopeless? Perhaps.

If I were some old guy I might close with some quip about the need to save all this daylight. Were I a cynic perhaps I would compare daylight savings to social security and ask if one day the Federal Government will have run out of sunlight. I'm a young optimist, however, so I will leave you with a quote which is probably by Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, or Yogi Bera.

Better late than never.