It's that time of year once again, when we Americans move our clocks ahead an hour. Because this is an internationally recognized and respected blog (hello to the six people in Ghana who visited last week!), I thought we should take some time to explain this unique timekeeping tradition, since to the rest of the world it sounds incredibly stupid.
Why have an annual tradition that roughly 30 percent of us forget to do and miss something important on Sunday as a result? Why, exactly, do we put ourselves through this? Why do we voluntarily lose an hour over a weekend every spring? Why do we alwasy forget that one clock for a few days and then when we find it it makes us feel really stupid? These are good questions, and to answer them, I've brought in The Answer Man.
Q. Answer Man! It's good to see you again. Where've you been?
A. I'm not at liberty to say.
Q. Okay, then. Why do we Americans move our clocks ahead an hour each spring?
A. That's an excellent question, and I'm glad you asked it.
Q. Thanks!
Q. So, are you going to answer it?
A. Oh! Right! Sorry! The reason we move our clocks ahead an hour is because of evolution.
Q. I'm not sure I understand.
A. See, millions of years ago, the top scientists in the world gathered together to study the topic of evolution. After a few short months, they realized they didn't know much about it, because they were essentially apes who had learned to use bones as clubs, as can be seen in the beginning of the excellent documentary film "2001: A Space Odyssey." So they realized if they wanted to evolve faster and learn to use bones as other tools (rakes, screwdrivers, iPads, etc.), they would somehow have to make time go much more quickly. So one of the smartest scientists, Og, said "Why not just move clocks ahead an hour? That make time go by, and we evolve much faster that way."
Q. Og was brilliant, wasn't he?
A. He's the one who thought up the bone-as-club idea in the first place. Anyway, they all agreed to set their clocks ahead an hour, only to make a startling discovery - they hadn't invented clocks yet! They laughed and laughed at their short-sightedness, and then beat each other with bone clubs for a while. Eventually due to blunt-force trauma to their heads they forgot what they were talking about, and so they didn't evolve.
Q. Who started the practice of setting clocks ahead an hour, then?
A. Sometime around 1779, after the invention of clocks, the clockmakers all gathered together one day to study the topic of evolution and beat each other with bone clubs. They also talked about a problem clockmakers of the day faced - families would buy one clock for their homes, and that was it. The clock market was pretty well saturated, and clockmakers weren't making any money. One of them, a brilliant man named Ogson, came up with a way to sell more clocks: Tell people they had to set their clocks an hour ahead AND an hour back each year! He reasoned (correctly) that people would get tired of setting a clock like this and would just break down and buy another one and set THAT one an hour ahead. The clockmakers wholeheartedly embraced this idea, and as a result they sold a LOT more clocks and made a metric buttload of money. This led to the invention of the first Ferrari dealership.
An interesting historical footnote: Ogson the clockmaker was a descendant of Og the ape scientist! What are the odds? It's this type of amazing historical "fun fact" that you won't find anywhere else, because I just now made it up.
Q. Why do we still set our clocks ahead and back an hour each year today? It doesn't seem to make much sense.
A. Because if we don't, all the clockmakers of the world will unleash their army of apes who will beat us with bone clubs.
Q. Fair enough. How do I get my VCR to stop flashing "12:00"?
A. That's all the time we have for today! Tune in next time, when The Answer Man will tackle the burning question: Is Nicholas Cage as whiny as he looks, or what?
(c) 2013 John Puckett
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