I don't want any more of this "springing forward."

One of my favorite stories about my grandma was an occurrence at the bank when my dad took her to look at her accounts.  My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's, which was obviously very sad, but it also produced many moments of lighthearted humor.  My grandma was constantly asking people to take her to the bank to see her accounts, as she was convinced that people were taking her money.  So, my dad finally took her, and he had the cashier show her the statements.  My grandma looked at the ledger and saw "credits" in one column and "debits" in the other, and she asked what "debit" meant.  She was told that a "debit" was when money went out of your account.  In all seriousness, my grandma replied, "Well, I don't want any more of these debits, then.  Only credits."

And, that's how I feel about "springing forward."  I don't want any more of this "springing forward."  Only "falling back."  That's right... I'm talking about good old daylight saving time.  And by "good," of course, I mean "awful."  Seriously, who invented this monstrosity?  Probably the same person who invented leap day.  Though, at least leap day causes minimal disruption in our lives.  And, it only comes once every four years, so people have learned to embrace it as sort of a novelty that is enjoyable because of its quirkiness.  Like a comet or an eclipse.

Daylight saving time, on the other hand, screws us up twice a year.  It's never a set day, so no one really remembers it's happening.  It just creeps up on you, and it always seems like a surprise.  Somehow, you forget that daylight saving time even exists... until it's time to change the clocks.  And every year, you curse daylight saving time in the spring, and relish it in the fall.

It's like, in the fall, you are oblivious to the fact that the wonderfulness of "falling back" has to be balanced, eventually, by "springing forward."  But, when you fall back, you aren't thinking that far ahead.  You are thinking, I get to sleep an extra hour.  And, that's exactly what it is:  ONE extra hour.  Because, the next night, you force yourself to stay awake and adjust your sleeping schedule to go to bed an hour later (at your normal "time").  Then, you are still sleeping the exact same amount, only shifted.  I can say that, in all honesty, I have never woken up an hour early when we get the extra hour.  My body sleeps that extra hour without fail.  It doesn't want to get up at my normal time... it enjoys that little bit extra.

Springing forward, however, you lose an hour of sleep.  And if you think far enough ahead to go to bed an hour early to compensate, I dislike you on principle alone.  Who plans things like that?  Undoubtedly, most averagely-organized people, like me, lose an hour of sleep.  And, losing one hour of sleep, unlike gaining an hour of sleep, does not just affect one night.  It affects your sleep schedule for weeks on end.  You still aren't tired until your "normal" bedtime, which is now an hour later than it was before.  And, you are now having to wake up an hour earlier than before.  So, it's really like losing 2 hours of sleep for a while.  So you are grouchy, tired, and basically a zombie for weeks before you adjust.  It's not only adjusting to getting up earlier, it's adjusting to going to bed earlier, too.  You know how hard it is to make yourself go to sleep an hour early?  Have you ever tried putting a kid to bed an hour early?  "Oh, your bedtime is at 8?  Well, you are going to bed at 7 tonight!"  Yeah, it's that hard.

I think the worst part of daylight saving time is that I always have grand plans for my extra hour in the fall.  When "fall back" time comes around, I think to myself, "Oh, well, I'm used to getting up at 7... now I can wake up at 6 with no problem!  I will use that extra hour to go to the gym, or run, or write my fake novel... or, gasp, watch the news and eat breakfast at home instead of at my desk at work."  All of these ideas run rampant in my head at the idea of being "given" an extra hour.  Guess how often I've actually followed through on these ideas?  Yeah, that's a big goose egg.  I'm still eating breakfast at my desk.  I set my alarm an hour earlier than "normal," and my body sees that number, and it is not having it.  Five snoozes later, I'm up at my normal time... vowing that tomorrow I will get up the hour early.  Then, I continue setting my alarm for the hour early, and continue pushing snooze five times... and this continues indefinitely.

And, now, I'm stuck in a cycle of setting my alarm an hour early and hitting snooze five times before I get up.  Which poses a problem... because if I now set my alarm to normal time, who knows when I would wake up?  My body robo-snoozes five times every morning.  I'd have to move my alarm clear across the room to make myself get up at this point.  And, I can't do that... because I can't see across the room without my contacts.  So, not being able to see the numbers would inevitably lead to me waking up in a panic at some ungodly hour every morning, freaking out that it's way later than it is and that I've missed my alarm.  I know; I've done this many times.  You'd think that "springing forward" might negate the forward shift in alarm time somehow, but I'm pretty sure my body is too stupid to figure that one out.  My mind might even be too stupid to figure it out.  I'm seriously sitting here writing out the different time changes and alarm times to see what matches up with what.  And confusing myself.

I blame the time change...