Down with the DST

The first time I got a job where I didn’t have to punch a fucking clock, I decided to stop observing Daylight Savings Time. This is harder than it seems, and not for the reason you think. I had to disable the option on half the clocks in the house, and I ended up using electrician’s tape to block the clock on the cable box. I spent as much effort to stop all the clocks from changing as we once spent to change them all in the pre-digital age.

For an entire year, I did not fall back. I was in a constant state of springing forward. And it was the best year of my life.

The only real time-related inconvenience was that I spent six months being an hour early for everything. I built this into my alcoholism schedule and just assumed that I always had time to find a bar and get at least two beers. That turned out to be a very bad habit when the clocks did spring forward again and I was, for about a month or so, showing up at places late and drunk. People don’t seem to mind if you’re early and drunk, though. Punctuality trumps vice, as always.

At work there was a problem. I was off the clock because I got a promotion to a bullshit job that involved me kneeling in a cold, wet room while my boss masturbated furiously onto my face. He held a very strict masturbation schedule and refused to change my hours, so I showed up an hour early but could not leave an hour early. I spent my extra hour each morning preparing myself for the ritualistic beatings by carving poems into my thighs.

Okay, okay! I’m kidding! I carved flash fiction into my thighs.

I didn’t mind coming to work early because I figured every workday was fucked anyway so why not put in extra time. Plus, whenever my boss said I was slacking off, I started crying and screaming that I worked all these unofficial extra hours and he should stop ramming that broken bottle up my ass.

Otherwise, always being an hour early was amazingly liberating. I felt empowered – like I knew something other people didn’t. Like I was part of some hour early VIP club.

Most important of all, there was no time-change funk. I don’t know about you, but this sneaky 3am time change really fucks me up. Why do our clocks need to change anyway? I’m I planting fucking maize? No, I’m getting blasted with evil boss cum. That can happen anytime, anywhere, no matter the planting season.

I attempted to push this experiment into a second year, but then I got a girlfriend and I had to stop such things. It’s much harder to always be an hour early when you’re dragging someone else along with you. HURRY UP! WE HAVE TO GO! WE HAVE TO BE THERE…so…we can go to the bar and get drunk while we wait for your parents to show up.