One
week has past since we had to reset all of the clocks again. Since
we do this twice a year now, I suppose this is the most exercise
some folks get and with good reason. What have we done to have
this national obsession with clocks and timekeeping? Everywhere I
go, I am confronted with a clock of some sort. We have them on our
phones, our pagers, our cell phones, in our cars, on our walls, on
the television, on the VCR. This doesn’t even begin to cover the
ones on our wrists, our nightstands and on the radio. If you
listen to the news (which is about all I can stand these days) not
only does the clock in the dash tell you the time, but also the
guy on the station announces the time about every 5 minutes or so.
It’s almost like he is oblivious to the fact that clocks
surround us.
The
problem with the one in the car is that it never matches up with
what the guy says on the radio, so you are always sitting at the
light wondering how you can adjust to make it come out the same.
This leads me to another stress causing piece of American anxiety.
Since we started building cars long before anyone else in the
world, you’d think we’d be able to design a dash clock that
was simple to adjust. Being the simple person that I am, I’m
looking for something that perhaps has a button for …minutes and
another one for ….hours. Is this too much to ask?
Try
and find this on your average American car these days. Nope, all
of the timekeeping change functions are built into the radio and
you have to be a graduate of M.I.T. just to set the correct time.
The instruction book for your automobile now equals the tax code
of the United States. In some cars you have to carry this in a
small trailer behind you since it won’t fit inside of the
vehicle. Not only are the instructions confusing, but also you
have to employ someone else to assist you since it is an
impossible task to perform by yourself. Mine tell me to…”Press
the on-off button at the same time you are pressing the ‘fade’
switch. At the same time press the scan and locate buttons several
times in succession which rolling down the right rear window.”
Just kidding, about the right rear window…..It’s actually the
left rear one in my instructions.
By the time you get to this part you have run out of
fingers and must either use your toes or get some other person to
help you.
Performing
this act in public is liable to get you arrested or cause you to
have an accident if you are doing these maneuvers while driving
the interstate. My real interest is in knowing why we are doing
this in the first place. I have heard that Daylight Savings time
is for the benefit of the farmers. I also hear that we are losing
farmers at the rate of 43,372 per day in this country. At this
rate I think we will run out of them in May or June of this year.
They are being replaced with giant farming corporations who
probably don’t care what time it is since they have to be in
operation 24 hours a day just to keep up with the farm surpluses
and be eligible for those tax credits and farm subsidies that we
pay them not to grow farm products in the first place.
So,
my question is this…if we are paying people not to grow crops
and there is only going to be one giant farmer in the country why
do the rest of us have to suffer through the pain and agony of
setting and resetting all of these stress provoking clocks twice
each year? Why not just buy the farmers who do survive a bigger
alarm clock so they can get up on time and leave the rest of us
alone? Someone once said ..”Even a broken clock is correct twice
a day.” Well, the same goes for me…if I just leave all of my
clocks the same, then they will correct themselves every six
months. So, I’ll either be late or early depending on which
period I start out …I suppose I could just listen to the guy on
the radio. He seems to always know. Comments go to
www.pearyperry.com
