everydaywithvj

Today we turned back the clocks one hour.  Spring Ahead – Fall Back. Annual ritual. Shouldn’t be a big deal.

Growing up I didn’t give it much thought and even as an adult it didn’t bother me.  My dad was an usher at our church though and he always had a fun time seeing the confused faces of worshipers who arrived thinking they were 15 minutes early for 11 a.m. services but were actually 15 minutes late for 9:30 services.

It will be darker earlier, which I don’t care for.  Perhaps it is something left from the hunter gatherer stage but when it is dark my brain tells me I should be safely at home, not running errands or heading off to a meeting.  Nevertheless, after a couple of weeks everyone becomes accustomed to the dark and life goes on its merry way.

The one thing though that is most annoying is clocks. Resetting all those clocks. Years ago, when this whole Spring Ahead – Fall Back idea went into effect, the number of clocks in the average residence were pretty much limited to living room, bedroom, kitchen, and a wrist watch.  On Saturday night on the way to bed my Dad would take the clock off the mantle in the living room and move the hands back an hour, head to the kitchen to update that clock, and then just before getting into bed he would reset the bedside wind up alarm clock.  The next morning he would change the time on his wrist watch.  All done!  Piece of cake.

Then we started getting more timepieces.  A clock radio in the kitchen and a clock in the car.  The older clock radios had numbers on a scroll and only moved forward. This required you to turn the numbers 11 hours ahead because there was no mechanism for turning the numbers back 1 hour.

Then smaller, lightweight, less expensive decorative clocks replaced the traditional timepieces and more clocks showed up in more places. When digital clocks became popular there would be several of those in key places around the house to update.  Then timepieces mushroomed.  The kitchen has a wall clock, a microwave clock, and an oven clock.  Some refrigerators have clocks.  The DVD players and cable/satellite boxes have clocks.  All the cars have clocks.  Computers have clocks.  Most people own several wristwatches – dress, casual, sport, etc. Clocks on the timers for indoor and outdoor lighting, pool filters, thermostats, alarm systems, and automatic sprinklers. Digital this and digital that.  Some digital clocks update automatically such as cell phones and some computers, and some are supposed to update automatically but don’t always do so, such as atomic clocks.  On one you press one place, and on another it is a totally different process.

It can be days later, or even weeks, when I discover a clock on some end table or in an out of the way place still giving me an incorrect time, not to  mention getting soaked on the way to the car by sprinklers activating at an odd time.

Oh well, it is a ritual of life, right?

How do you adjust to the time change?

Every Day Is A Good Day.  VJ