Over 63,000 people have lent their name to an online petition demanding the abolition of daylight saving time. Of course, you can probably find an online petition with twice as many names demanding the abolition of the moon. (It moves around and changes shape. You can't trust it.)

It's fitting that DST's end came right after Halloween. No holiday wears out its welcome so fast. Christmas lingers and fades; we exist in a state of theoretical festiveness with another holiday coming to wrap up the long hurrah, but on the day after Halloween, the magic has fled and the pumpkins already have their faces chewed off by squirrels. So BANG: November. BANG: Darkness. The end of DST kicks you in a cell and slams the door. It's hard, but we know it'll swing back open some day, and those long summer nights will be the most precious — slap! dang skeeters — days of the year.

But, you say, aren't there Studies that show DST is dangerous? Yes. Drinking it can kill you. No sorry, that's DDT. According to CNN, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers in 2012 said the DST change in the spring "led to a 10 percent increase in heart attack risk." Be safe, people! Smear some gel on the defibrillator pads before you adjust your alarm clock! The risk drops 10 percent when the clocks go back, and researchers think it has to do with the amount of sleep you get, which is apparently beyond anyone's control.

The only thing that's annoying about the change is adjusting the clocks, which is a hardship only if you have to utter the phrase "well, I'd better go out and repaint the sundial." Otherwise it's a chance to sync all the kitchen clocks. Make a family game of it! OK, you handle the microwave. You, the radio. You, the oven. I'll count us down using my cellphone! Ten — nine —

Dad, it's 2 a.m.

I know, but Mom always says we should do more things as a family. Three — two — PUSH SET TIME! There.

Winter has begun, but take hope: By the end of next month the days will begin to lengthen. As Churchill said, "this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning of the start of the first part before the beginning begins."

Why, it's practically spring.

jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858