Ben Franklin, one of our greatest founding fathers, was also an incredible inventor. He invented the lighting rod, swimming fins, street lamps, the odometer and bifocals, among other amazing discoveries. He never patented any of these life-changing inventions, forgoing any profits, as he considered them a gift to humanity. Contrary to belief, Ben Franklin didn’t actually invent “Daylight Saving Time” (by the way, there is no “s” after Saving if you are writing about it correctly – this was news to me, too) but he was a proponent of it. This just proves that nobody’s perfect, not even Benjamin Franklin.
I hate this “spring forward” part of Daylight Saving Time. This will most likely be the grumpiest Monday of the year, for me and my family. Why does losing that extra hour of real sleep feel like I didn’t sleep at all last night? Once again, just after I was getting used to seeing the early morning heartwarming, hopeful sunshine, I had to take my dogs out for their morning release, in the darkest of dark, praying that no alligators had climbed up out from the lake, into our yard hoping for a “Scooby snack.” (or in our case, a “Ralphie or Josie snack”) Undoubtedly, there is some clock in our house or in our cars, that we forgot to change and that will throw us for a loop. That will mean that I’ll be late getting my daughter to tennis practice or I’ll end up at a place of business that is already closed for the day. I’ve already prepared myself for the inevitable time confusion. It’s happened before. It’ll happen again.
Some states have refused to participate in DST. Arizona and Hawaii are looking like really appealing places to live, for me right now. Of course, their citizens will have to start doing the annoyingly confusing time-change math in their heads, if they are setting up web meetings or telephone calls with the rest of us crazies. Did I also mention that Ben Franklin invented the urinary catheter? I think that he may have had a mean streak.
