The beginning and end of each Daylight Saving Time always leaves us wondering: Why do we need so many clocks?
When Daylight Saving Time first started in 1918, each house probably had two timepieces: The big clock above the mantel and Dad’s pocket watch. When Congress adopted the first nationwide Daylight Saving Time, the act was highly controversial. But not because of all the time wasted changing the clocks. In those days, it took only a matter of seconds.
Last Saturday night I spent tracking down all the clocks in the house and wondering why we had so many. We’re a typical American older couple with one dog, one cat and innumerable clocks. For some reason, we can’t keep a calendar on the wall, but clocks are everywhere. We can’t help but know what time it is even though the time seldom matters, and when it does we’re late anyway.
I started setting the clocks ahead one hour and was surprised by the time it took. The stove has a clock on it because it helps start and stop the cooking process automatically, except nobody can figure out how that works. So it’s used as just a clock, telling us what time we’re looking at the stove. A few feet away, there’s a clock radio on top of the refrigerator. We never use the radio, but it’s a comforting reminder of when local radio was important. It would bring us the top 40 over the AM waves, and when the dog disappeared we’d call the station and pretty soon the whole neighborhood knew about it. A few minutes later someone would call about a brown and black spot in the middle of the road, and we’d know what happened to Skippy. None of that happens any more, but it’s nice to still have a clock radio.
Across the linoleum, there’s a wall clock by the cupboard, with a wood frame to match. This is in case we want our time a little fancier than the stove and refrigerator can provide.
In the living room, there’s a clock comprised of several angels on top of the TV. We can seldom see the time due to the glare, but it’s nice to have angels watching over the TV, even though they must disapprove of the content. We see destitute earthquake victims, but just above them are cherubic angels. It keeps things in perspective.
On the other side of the living room is a cuckoo clock purchased years ago from Cabela’s. The bird pops out once and hour and everyone opens fire on it. No, that actually doesn’t happen, but I’ve always thought Cabela’s could make a mint with the clock/gun combo. As it is, the clock amuses the grandson, who always stops tearing the house apart long enough to look at the cuckoo and laugh. The cuckoo is our hardest clock to change in the fall, when you have to set the hands back. The instructions say NEVER move the hands backward, although it doesn’t say why. But rather than risk an explosion or something worse, we stop the clock and wait 23 hours to start it again, thereby losing one hour. Actually, we lose three weeks because that’s generally how long it takes to remember to restart the clock.
This is just the beginning of the clock tour of our house. There are clocks in the bedrooms. The master bedroom has clocks on both sides of the bed, because we can’t agree on what time we would like it to be. I like it on time, she likes it five minutes fast, so she lives slightly in the future. Every time I say something, she’s already heard it.
After laboriously changing all the clocks just after midnight, I happened to glance at our cell phone. It had smugly changed itself to Pacific Daylight Time. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a smart-alecky telephone.
