Is This 60 Minutes Worth It?

Sorry this blog is late but the whole "time change disaster" happened this weekend. Doesn't that give me an excuse?

I know the Japanese tsunami and earthquake is the real disaster right now, and my heart and thoughts are with the Japanese. I suggest everyone donate to the cause because they truly need the help.  But I can't write about that. I'm no expert on it.

But I am an expert on loving my sleep.   Sleep rules and I try to get as much as I can. I'm old so I go to bed early and wake up early, but I still cram plenty of sleep in. But not this week.

 Yes, Daylight Saving time is here. Can I pose a question here? WHY do we do this? Again, I'm no expert on this, (This "no expert" thing seems to be trend) but if I took a poll on this (and I might,) I think most people would agree.

I've heard reasons for this. "It saves energy." "It's good for farmers." "Everybody needs help on their clock changing skills." (Ok, I made that last one up, even though the I-Phone could use the help.) But it's totally unnatural to mess with people's sleep. The sun was already setting a little later every day. Spring was already on its way. Nature does pretty well without us and has for billions of years (except that whole dinasours getting totally wiped out thing.) Why do we humans insist on doing something that is totally against the natural order?

 Here are some real life comments I heard this weekend about the time change. To protect identities, I'll attribute them Bob, Bob and Bridget (in that order.)

-"Just a heads up. I'm going to be cranky next week becuase of time change."

-"Sometimes it is fine and other times it takes me a week to get used to it."

-"It's exhausting because we spend all our energy thinking about time. What time is it? What time should it be? Did I change that clock? Why am I hungry at 2pm? Isn't my husband the best?" (Ok, Ok, I made that last one up.)

Here's an idea: Let's try NOT doing this for a couple of years and see if it works out. I bet it will get dark at 9pm during the summer, get dark at 4pm in the dead of Winter, and the seasons will come and go like they always do. But for two weeks a year we'll have fewer car accidents, more productive workers, fewer cranky people, and fewer kids getting up at wacky times.

As we've seen in Japan and elsewhere, when it's "people versus nature," nature always wins. Let's stop trying to win that fight.

And if you want to take my poll, comment "yes" to keep the time change and "no" to make it face the fate of the dinosaurs.