(DST) Disrespect of Sleep Time

We woke up on time this morning, as far as I'm concerned and as far as more than half the world is concerned.  Church services are normally at 9am for us and around 8:30 we were having a leisurely breakfast.  It wasn't until I looked at my computer (dialed in to the nation's schedule) that I realized it was actually 9:30.  It had struck again.

Duped is a word I would not hesitate to use here.  Betrayed, deceived, or even (hold your breath) beguiled.  I would say I like duped the best, except that I was tired enough getting out of bed as it was that I didn't much "like" anything at that hour.

I still cannot fathom why we go through this process.  It's not really related to farming, work shifts, health, safety or anything else.  At least not conclusively.  Sure, some folks have stated that it started for reason X or Y, but why in 2011 are we still doing this?  Just when my body is getting its sync after the last invasive change to my sleeping schedule--which is hard enough for me to do as a student--it's time to adjust to a new one.

For a week, companies send out emails to their employees reminding them about DST.  As a kid I remember DST often coinciding with a special weekend-long church conference, so we got warning on Saturday night of the impending doom when we would wake up.  This weekend there was no salvation, and no more Mom & Dad to knock on the door and bear the bad news.

We officially made it to church on time, for Standard Time.  We hoped the parking lot would only be half full and that there would be two factions vying for church power: the old garde who had been there since the time-honored traditional 9am, and the reformists who believe scheduling should be based on principles of "truth", such as forgetting to adjust our clocks the night before.  As scholars, we naturally fell into the more logical second sect.  And the parking lot was already full.

I just don't like the idea of changing times twice a year.  I have three main reasons, in this order.
1)  It's stupid.
2)  Just when it's getting nice and light in the morning well before I have to start working or schooling, just when it's getting pretty out when I'm trying to exercise but there's still not a soul on the road trying to run me over yet, it goes back to dark.  Just because this is worded like a grievance doesn't mean it doesn't count as a reason.
3)  It's a waste of time to try to keep changing schedules and making everything adapt to them, twice a year.  By schedules I mean both commercial and physiological.  By "wasted" I mean I would've made it to church on time, or not tired, or both if they'd just left it alone.
4)  (Hey, I'm in the Humanities, not the sciences.  I never had to go past Pre-Algebra to get into literature)  I have never never never understood "Spring forward, Fall back".  Even when I think I've got it, 6 months go by and I go from being anything but a morning person to an early-riser without even knowing it until I get to work/school.

I'm sure there are plenty of advantages to having DST....just absolutely sure of it.  But honestly, I bet that if the nation/northwestern quarter of the planet got used to not changing the clock that people would find as many reasons to back up sticking with the tradition they've followed for the last century.

Back to reason #4.  Laugh all you want but to me "forward" can refer to the concept of moving ahead, which to me means "later", or it could mean advancing in a backwards way, like the saying was meant to be taken.  I'm not actually sure which one made more sense to me in the beginning, but trying to re-solve the mystery twice a year for most of 30 years still hasn't produced any other result than frustration.  Except that I did come up with my own saying "Spring sucks, Fall rocks".  You know, like falling rocks?  Get it?  Get it?? Well at least the first part of it has some intellectual value to it.  But that still doesn't make me remember when it's happening in the first place.

Back to reason #1.  Yes, it's a reason.  In rhetoric it's called litotes.  If you don't buy that, try aschematiston.  Or maybe just insomnia.