Just Say No to Daylight Saving Time

Hello, police, I want to report something missing...I had an hour taken away from my life while I was sleeping and I'm not happy about it."

I'm not a huge friend of daylight saving time.

In fact, I hate it.

I know it was started to help farmers with their crops. I lover farmers, grew up on a farm and still consider myself a farm boy at heart.

When this whole idea of taking an hour out of my life started,, tractors didn't have lights on them and there were a whole lot more farmers in the country.

Now, it's just an excuse to mess with me and my precious time.

And I'm pretty ticked off about it.

Instead of talking about foreign policy or the economy, the presidential candidates ought be getting down to the real important issue facing the country...who stole the hour we lost and how do we stop this outdated madness?

Even more I went to bed last night, I knew I was going to wake up all messed up today...well more so than usual.

I'm a creature of habit. I get up at 6:30 a.m., every day, no matter when I went to bed, but today, it was 7:30 a.m.

That's an hour after I've had my first feeding of the day.

Besides, my life is an endless battle with technology, and messing around with my time doesn't help it. My car clock is always behind or ahead an hour. That means in the fall, I'm always an hour early for appointments, which isn't necessarily, a bad thing. I'm known as "Early Mike."

As of today, though, I'm back to being "Late Mike," the guy who everyone is mad at for being late all the time.

Frankly, I've given up trying to set the timer on anything besides the clock. My answering machine always records an hour early or an hour late. Calls at noon are really 1 p.m.

That's not a huge deal in my world.

But what is important is how much this losing an hour messes with my brain, as I never get totally used to it.

It's like the old joke by deadpan comedian Steven Wright, a Burlington native.

"My parents came from Europe and they never got used to the time change."

Mr. and Mrs. Wright, like a former president said, "I feel your pain."

Now if we can only get the gentlemen running for the White House to make this a focus of the campaign.

"Give me my hour back."

It's not like "Give me liberty or give me death," but it will do for now.

After all, what do you expect from a guy who just lost an hour off of his life while he was sleeping?"