Spring forward.

Fall back.

For as long as I can remember, whenever the whole topic of Daylight Savings Time would come up, I’d struggle to remember the adjustment that needed to be made to the clocks.  Sure, I knew it was an hour...but ahead?  Back?  Which one and at what time of the year?  The only way I remember is by reciting “Spring forward.  Fall back” in my head.

It’s always been a pet peeve of mine when people say “Man, losing that hour of sleep has really screwed me up!”.  Why?  You knew about it in advance, yet chose not to plan accordingly.  If you knew you were going to “lose an hour” of sleep, you should have gone to bed a little earlier.  It’s not like the Daylight Savings Time Fairy waved her wand and just dropped it in at random places throughout the year.  It’s not like no one was talks about it.  I had three people ON FRIDAY ALONE tell me “don’t forget to spring forward!”.

The origins of Daylight Savings Time came up on the show this morning as well.  In a matter of 10 minutes, we had about 10 different calls and emails, each with a completely different version of where DST comes from.  Based on our listeners’ insight, from what I can gather, Daylight Savings Time was invented by Ben Franklin in the 1970’s because people were burning too many candles, kids weren’t home in time to work on the farm, unicorns needed light to eat their magic jelly beans and <insert political joke here pitting Republicans against Democrats>.

I’m sure it would be easy enough for me to do the actual research, but I’d like to once again call on you, the listener (and reader).  Answer this simple question as seriously (or not seriously) as you possibly can:

What is the origin of Daylight Savings Time?

Leave your comments below.  The person that entertains me the most may win something.  But probably not.

-steve

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