This may be the first time in my life that I did not know about changing the clocks for Daylight Savings Time.  That is reason enough to abolish the policy.

Britannica: Pros and Cons of Daylight Savings Time

Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals, lightning rods, calling electrons negative, and Daylight Savings Time.  Those last two were a mistake, and mildly irritating.  At least DST can practically be abolished.

The only defense of DST that anyone promotes is something about it being light out when little kids get on the school bus.  That isn’t persuasive because parents wait for the school bus with their little kids.  If it is a concern, elementary schools could start an hour later all year or for five months.  Who cares?

Everything else about DST is a pain in the ass.

The darkest time for DST was in the mid-1980’s.  Everyone had a VCR, and for some reason, changing the time on a VCR was notoriously tedious.  Buttons cost extra or something.  Manufacturers build in a software feature that automatically changed the clock for DST.  In 1987, Congress changed the dates. The VCR clock didn’t change when it should, and a few weeks later, changed when it shouldn’t.  The DST feature could be turned off in the setup, but it was just another thing we had to do.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica article linked above offers these invalid arguments in favor of DST.

Pro 1:  DST’s longer daylight hours promote safety.  The hours of daylight don’t change, and interrupting sleep schedules is more dangerous.

Pro 2:  DST is good for the economy.  Online retailers are always open and consumer debt isn’t great for the economy.

Pro 3:  DST promotes active lifestyles.  We have lights now and Planet Fitness is open 24 hours. 

With no good reason to change the clocks twice per year, DST is just another antiquated custom that a few people defend just to be contrarian and Congress doesn’t address because doing anything involves some risk. If Congress does not benefit, then it isn’t worth doing. 

For everyone else, it’s another useless vexation that drags on, similar to pennies and ethanol.

Like Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.  Or friends and coworkers.  I don’t watch broadcast or TV news, so rely on someone mentioning that it is time to change the clocks.

Retirement isn’t what broke my system. 

For 15 years or so, we had Movie Night with friends on Saturday evenings.  Covid broke that routine because we were cautious and not many good movies come out anymore.  That may have been my primary means of learning it was time to change the clocks.

Being retired means I don’t have to be vigilant about the clocks.  My phone and stove won’t agree on the time, so at some point in the day, it will be obvious that the time has changed.  Still though, let’s abolish DST because everyone has enough to do.