why i'm sleepy

OK, this time thing - standard, daylight, summer (in the British vernacular), Eastern, Pacific, Greenwich... - is out of control. Just like everything else the governments of the world try to manage, the hours of our day have been taken over by "experts" and now the rest of us are confused - and sleepy. Here are my thoughts:

The inventor of Daylight saving time was a guy named William Willet, a builder in the United Kingdom. Yep, not a scientist or an astrologist or a physicist or even a clock-maker. He was a builder, but obviously one with lots of money and more than a few key connections. This one man who wanted more time to play in the sun made it his task to change the rules for all of us. Can you get much more selfish than that? BTW, some folks think DST was Benjamin Franklin's idea. Actually, BJ's solution to making candles last longer was getting up when the sun did and hitting the sack when it got dark. Good ol' American ingenuity.

A good piece of the world has decided that playing with the clock a couple of times each year just isn't necessary. Some folks even say it's unhealthy. Regardless of why, those of us nations who are reluctant to change the tick-tock tradition much more than moving it back or forth a few weeks should give it a little more serious consideration. Let's call it preventive health care. Maybe the insurance companies should hire lobbyists to address the matter.

There are others who claim that abandoning Standard time in the spring is good for the pocketbook. Merchants sell more they say. Ball games and outdoor activities thrive, and we don't use as much electricity. Farmers disagree on the help/hurt of it all, but the police say it cuts back on thieves who work dirty in the dark. That being said, I have friends who take full advantage of the switch back when last call is announced once, rescinded, then again an hour later.

Maybe shifting the clock around is a good thing overall, but for me it's just a bit annoying. I feel cheated the morning after the change, even though I slept through the sequence of events. Which causes me to question why I'm so sleepy. And if one man can mess it up, (BTW, Mr. Willett didn't live to adjust his watch.) maybe I'm the man to fix it.