Is it just me, or does this whole Daylight Saving Time thing seem like a solution in search of a problem?

I ask after a triple espresso-topped-with-a-Red Bull/Monster/Rock Star cocktail with a 5-hour Energy chaser as I resist an avalanche of fatigue that started with the snowflake of turning all the clocks ahead an hour last Sunday.

I just have to ask, is all this really necessary? I've lived in Arkansas most of my life and if there's one thing we have more of than mosquitoes and road kill in the summer, it's daylight. Just how much of it do we really have to save?

Of course, my reaction has nothing to do with daylight, anyway. It's that missing hour of sleep, combined with a general sense something just isn't quite right, that turns us all in zombies, only not quite as bright, for at least the first two or three weeks of March. That, and NCAA Basketball Tournament brackets.

The problem with missing an hour of sleep is its impact increases exponentially over time. It's sort of like one of my errant tee shots; get it going just a little off at impact and before you know it, the ball is so far back in the woods a bloodhound couldn't find it if it were wrapped in a cheeseburger.

Miss an hour of sleep on Sunday and by Wednesday I'm wondering if Daylight Saving Time is a clock adjustment process or a Gitmo interrogation technique.

The idea behind Daylight Saving Time is it allows us to adjust our clocks in concert with the longer days of the summer so that we can be in the sunshine longer engaging in vigorous, sweaty, frequently dangerous activities and spending more time with our families.

We want this, I'm led to believe.

At least that was the idea as proposed by President Woodrow Wilson, who kept pushing for Daylight Saving Time. It's worth noting Wilson also holds the distinction of having recorded the most rounds of golf as a sitting president. Keep playing that family card there, Woody.

I've done some exhaustive research on the matter (OK, Wikipedia) and I discovered the first widespread use of Daylight Saving Time was by the Germans and Austro-Hungarians during World War I. That, of course, means we should hurry up and adopt it because everything else in that partnership worked out so well.

Daylight Saving Time is also supposed to be good for farmers, since it provides them more daylight to work by during the critical growing season. This, of course, is generally suggested by people who have formed this opinion free from the constraints of actually having farmed, and who, apparently, have never heard the phrase "can till can't."

And then there's the whole concept of trying to determine exactly what time it actually is. Is it really 8 and we're just saying it's 9, or is it 9 and half the year we're wrong? When someone asks us what time it is, what are we supposed to say? "OK, my watch says 7:30, but (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) we know what that REALLY means, right?"

Speaking of watches, once upon a time, changing the time on your watch consisted of pulling the stem out, cranking it a little bit and pushing it back in. Then going to the watch repair shop because you pulled the stem out too far, but that didn't happen all the time.

Now, you get to tear up the house searching for directions to tell you in what exact sequence and timing you have to push which buttons to get you into the right mode that will allow you to keep pushing buttons to get you through all the AM, PM and military options to get back to the exact time you want ... then a hour more because you couldn't stop pushing fast enough. Now you have to go through the whole thing again, except you have to clear out the settings this time and that part of the directions got ripped off the sheet and you're going to have to take a swing at deciphering the Portuguese version and you have to wonder just how many watches they sell in Portugal, then you remember, oh, ya, Brazil.

This is why, for roughly half the year I know what time it is and for half the year I've got to do some quick math.

All so the guy who came up with the League of Nations could get in a little more golf.

Gee, thanks, Woody.

Commentary on 03/13/2014