Nina In New York: More Like Daylight Stupid Time, Amirite?

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak

Halloween is over, the marathon got done ran, and Daylight Saving Time has ended. Or has it begun? Whatever, it's just annoying. Thanks a lot, Woodrow Wilson or possibly Benjamin Franklin or whoever I hate you. Who gave you the right to mess with the fabric of the universe, and therefore my head? Twice a year, every year, I am forced to attempt to reconcile the idea that a government of human people (or are they? ha ha.) can alter the passage of time. Time! Isn't time an absolute? The Earth keeps spinning and rotating, and I sort of just feel like maybe our watches have been wrong for around a hundred years or so. When the government can say, "turn your clocks back at 2:00 AM on November 1st," we may as well start telling people who ask us for the time that it's 67 o'clock or octopus:42 PM or ten minutes 'till vodka because everything is relative and meaningless nonsense anyway.

The children, however, know what time it is. It's time to wake up. All. The. Time.

Children are pure beings. They are innocent, untainted creatures who have no reason or compulsion to adhere to our unnatural order. They care not about socialized behaviors or alterations to our most basic, animal instincts—at least, not until we force them to (which we do pretty much immediately upon birth). We make them wear socks, we make them smile, we make them say hello and goodbye and thank you and please. We make them learn and play and we stop them from biting and speaking at inappropriate volumes. But when it comes to sleep, there's nothing we can do to assimilate them to our way of life. They follow their own internal clocks and no one else's. Admittedly, their clocks are often completely broken. But I think all the exhausted parents walking around today should be testament to the fact that we're not meant to screw around with this stuff. Without any prior organization or communication, all of our children uniformly and fully reject the entire institution of DST. Let's take the note. We can admit when we've been wrong about something, right? We're secure enough in ourselves to change course, even after all these years. Plus, we can just blame some old, dead guys! This is such a slam dunk. Just do it. Do it. Come on, do it. Just . . . do it. I don't know how else to say this. It just needs to happen. What, we're going to let Arizona be the best state at something? Guys. Seriously. Don't embarrass us.

Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!