Sleepily Searching for an Hour
Monday morning. Light prods at my eyes. I open one eye and look at the bedside radio clock. Past nine o'clock. Why am I so tired? Why am I not hungry for breakfast? Oh, that's right. On Saturday night the clocks went forward an hour. I hate the world.
So I get up feeling listless and absent. I have things to do this morning. I can't just crawl onto my chair in the study and let the hours go by. I have to get up. So I get up, eat a breakfast I don't feel like eating, and go do errands. In town, people have longer faces than usual. In the supermarket at the checkout counter, the woman in front of me is kidded by the cashier, who knows her. He tells her she looks like she's asleep on her feet. She retorts that that is exactly what she feels like.
Since the energy crisis of the 1970's, Spain has installed Daylight Savings Time in the summer. It was supposed to save money, allowing people to turn on the lights later. Perhaps along the Mediterranean, but not so much in the west. We should be in the same time zone as Portugal, directly south of us and an hour behind. Instead, we need to turn on the lights in the morning when most of us get up and start work. Just last week we didn't have to. And had already started turning on the lights later in the evening.
Deprived of energy, I return home and start lunch. For which I'm not really hungry because my body says it's still too early. All this madness just to have an extra hour of light in the evening. Oh, of course, it's supposed to save energy. Funny, but I've never noticed my light bill go down in the summer. If all I'm going to save is a few cents, I'd rather have my hour of sleep back and feel normal. Stop this madness, I want to sleep!
So I get up feeling listless and absent. I have things to do this morning. I can't just crawl onto my chair in the study and let the hours go by. I have to get up. So I get up, eat a breakfast I don't feel like eating, and go do errands. In town, people have longer faces than usual. In the supermarket at the checkout counter, the woman in front of me is kidded by the cashier, who knows her. He tells her she looks like she's asleep on her feet. She retorts that that is exactly what she feels like.
Since the energy crisis of the 1970's, Spain has installed Daylight Savings Time in the summer. It was supposed to save money, allowing people to turn on the lights later. Perhaps along the Mediterranean, but not so much in the west. We should be in the same time zone as Portugal, directly south of us and an hour behind. Instead, we need to turn on the lights in the morning when most of us get up and start work. Just last week we didn't have to. And had already started turning on the lights later in the evening.
Deprived of energy, I return home and start lunch. For which I'm not really hungry because my body says it's still too early. All this madness just to have an extra hour of light in the evening. Oh, of course, it's supposed to save energy. Funny, but I've never noticed my light bill go down in the summer. If all I'm going to save is a few cents, I'd rather have my hour of sleep back and feel normal. Stop this madness, I want to sleep!
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