Ben Franklin, Daylight Savings Time and Satan

I was a bit surprised by my Friday post. It elicited a lot of response. I was just trying to be a smart aleck. Almost said the a-word.

Daylight savings time has really messed with me. Got up late, in to work late, and this is after being under Daylight Savings Time for a day.

Okay, for those of you who don't know, Benjamin Franklin created Daylight Savings Time to save on kerosene or time or whatever. Personally, I think Ben thought of this as some sort of joke. "How can I get George Washington's panties in a wad?" Okay, he probably thought pantaloons, not panties, but you get the idea. He knew he couldn't make a joke about termites and false teeth – I get the impression that George was the kind of guy that was long on heroism and short on smarts. Again, just my impression. So to make George act at the buffoon in his pantaloons, Ben Franklin invented Daylight Savings Time.

There are several reasons I hate Daylight Savings Time – first, I can never tell when it is on or off. Are we going on Daylight Savings Time or coming off of it? I have no idea, but I do know the people who have figured it out will correct me when I misuse the term. These are Leesa's friends. And not my friends, but that gorgeous Montana-living, talented-photographer bitch Leesa. I just call her bitch Leesa because we are just that close. And she has some gorgeous picture of a hummer (a bird, not a car or a sexual act).

We all remember, "Spring forward, fall back." One year I got it backwards, so I was two hours off of the rest of the word for an entire day. That shows how smart I am.

There are several areas that don't observe Daylight Savings Time in the US. So if you are in Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Nation), Hawaii and the territories of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa, you don't observe Daylight Savings Time. The rest of the nation considers these places backwards – I remember even a teacher in high school making that statement. And you know, I think we have it backwards. They are the smart ones, and we are jealous of them.

Here is what I want to know – the areas who don't observe Daylight Savings Time – are they more likely not to have good batteries in their smoke detectors? Do they have more fatalities in fires because of this? Do people in these areas even have to change the batteries in their smoke detectors? Or are there PSAs that warn citizens in these areas about changing batteries as if they were observing Daylight Savings Time. Lots of questions here.

Maybe Satan is really responsible for Daylight Savings Time – he wants us to skip church one weekend per year, and by screwing with the times, he is ensured of this. And for those of us less committed, twice per year – you know, when you arrive at church an hour early when returning to standard time and you say, "screw it, we are going home and back to bed."

I like electricity, kites, bifocal glasses. So I am not saying that Ben Franklin is Satan. But someone could make the comparison – Daylight Savings Time would be a given. Now, I don't wear bifocals, but I bet wearing them is a challenge. Perhaps wearers of these glasses would think the inventor of the glasses would be Satan himself. Plus Franklin was a publisher – wanted to get the word out to the masses. Sort of satan-esque. Electricity allows us to do things much more efficiently – and idle hands are the devil's tools.