The Day Of The Sleepy

April 2nd will bring something new and strange to my current state of residence. Indiana has, for 130 years or so, managed to avoid this new thing, but now, alas, it has come. April 2nd begins Daylight Savings time for states all across the continent. Until this year Indiana refused to participate in the program. But it has been decided that our status quo of stately independence is not to be tolerated any longer. We will conform with everyone else and woe betide he who fails to set his clock one hour ahead on the eve of April 2nd. In a way, it's like a late April Fool's Day joke.

All my life I have been subject to Daylight Savings. Each spring I set my clock one hour ahead and lose an hour of sleep. I then proceed to feel like I cannot be on time for anything for one full month post clock change. To add to my depressive struggle, my internal clock -- which works so well that I almost always awaken before my alarm clock -- becomes utterly confused and proceeds to waken me at strange intervals. It then decides that I cannot be trusted anymore and becomes so erratic that I start sleeping lighter than normal and am fatigued for the next two months. All for the change of an hour's time! Putting the clock's back to right, only annoys my internal timekeeper even more. Yes, the extra hour of sleep was nice, but no thank you, it can't trust me anymore than it could in the spring, thus another two months of being overly tired and dreaming weird dreams in light sleep ensues. That one hour of sleep lost grows into a monster of many hours lost that cannot be made up for by gaining one hour 6 months later.

Farmers are great. I mean, I grew up on a farm. I have every respect for farmers and their work. However, we're not an agrarian nation anymore. Changing the clocks during the summer to preserve daylight has become an outdated nuisance. Our economy is fueled by industry rather than vegetable markets in every village or long hours of tilling the land. Furthermore, farmers are high tech individuals these days. Most tractors have headlights as do combines and other large, scary pieces of farm equipment. People can work with artificial lights as they could not when Daylight Savings began. Labor saving devices make it possible for farmers to get more sleep at night or have leisure time these days. They do not rise as early as they did in the past, nor do they spend every waking moment laboring in the fields.

In essence, Daylight Savings has become the dead dinosaur of a bygone era. It is nothing more than the leftovers of horse and buggy days. Like the crooked, winding streets of the East Coast -- where driving cars is next to impossible -- this concept should be modernized to reflect the technological age. Join with me, my fellow Americans, in throwing off the bizarre shackles of Daylight Savings. Vote yes on Proposal YTBD (yet to be disclosed).