DST is gone, but who pilfered the savings?

Fall behind, spring up? Fall on your face, spring on your heels. Whatever. You know the drill: All 396 of your digital clocks, from the oven to the microwave to the phones, must be reset Sunday.

Few people can remember if we're going off DST, or on DST, or whether DST was banned as a hazardous chemical, or how daylight is being saved. In a blind trust? A jar in the garage? If we save 20 minutes, is there a matching contribution from our employer, and is it taxable? There are so many questions, first among which is: WHY?

So we don't have to wake in the dark. There's something to be said for this; some mornings I think the only reason for waking in the dark is because you're a Navy SEAL, and you're going to go shoot pirates by moonlight. Otherwise, no. You stand in the kitchen, half asleep, wondering if you dreamed your life and you're actually a farmer. Then you find yourself trying to milk the dog with your briefcase as a pail.

But here's the thing: Thanks to Edison's marvelous invention, mornings no longer need be conducted by lamplight. Driving to work in the dark makes you feel industrious, too; I prefer it to driving home in the dark, which makes the day seem like you're creeping from one cave to another. Which you are. I would be content to keep things as they were, and there are many who think this jiggery-pokery is a waste of ... well, time. There's no evidence it saves energy, they say. It's just something we do because we're used to it, like watching "American Idol," and we should stop mucking with the clock.

These people would be happy if the sun set by 8 p.m. on the longest days of the summer. They are known as "sadists," or, alternately, "Californians," a strange species of people who have so much sun that they export it to the rest of the country in the form of oranges and sitcoms.

Keep it the way it is, I say. It's a shock when the day slams shut so soon, but nothing gladdens the heart like the first long day of summer -- which will come in June next year, alas. Yes, we saved a lot of daylight, but it's evaporated. Some idiot invested it all in Petters stock.

jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 • More daily at www.startribune.com/buzz

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