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Daylight Saving Time: Does Anybody Here Really Know What Time It Is?
by Marjorie Dorfman
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| About three years ago, I arrived at the stable where I kept my horse for an 8AM trail ride scheduled with four other riders. It was a clear, crisp October Sunday, the morning after the 2AM switchover the night before. I had not listened to the news before going to bed and therefore forgot to set the clocks an hour back. When I arrived bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, there was not another soul or car in sight and the horses were sound asleep in their stalls! That's because it was 6:30 and not 7:30AM. I sat in my car until the other riders arrived and everyone had a good laugh on me, even the horses. I went home and inquired of everyone I met what time it was. Everyone told me something different, and until I could synchronize the correct time with the television, all of the clocks in my house were set at different times.
 You would have thought I would have learned from that, n'est ce pas? Well, this year I was foiled again. I had the same excuse; failure to listen to the evening news because I was depressed enough without adding terrorists and anthrax to my daily list of problems before going to sleep. I had made an appointment with a friend for lunch at a local restaurant at 1PM on the Sunday after the switchover, (a dangerous appointment day, it would seem). My friend had set her clock an hour ahead instead of back and arrived an hour late. (At least she remembered to set her clock! That's more than I can say.) I arrived at what I thought was 12:45, making me more than fashionably early. Of course, it was really 11:45, (but 12:45 according to my friend.) I killed some time and returned to the restaurant at precisely 1PM and my friend still wasn't there. The waitress said she had seen a woman pacing out in front, checking her watch and babbling things about Brooklyn (my hometown). That's when I called her and found out that she had been waiting for me for almost an hour and then went home. She thought that I had forgotten our appointment. We decided to wait until after daylight saving time to try to meet again. Can you imagine that?
So what can be learned from all this? The truth is that I am not sure that I have learned anything at all, except that it is likely that I will screw up once again when no one is looking. I'll try to do my part and avoid luncheon appointments and trail rides in the Spring and the Fall. One of these days I might even understand it all, but not right now. I can't. I don't have the time; be it Eastern Standard, Rocky Mountain, Pacific, Daylight Saving or Other!
Did you know . . .
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Culture is one thing and varnish another
R.W. Emerson, Journals, 1868
In the room, the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock
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