Time The Avenger

I have, to a certain degree, surrendered myself to the low-grade annoyance that is daylight savings time. While I am routinely struck by just how many devices we have to keep track of time in our house, I am happy that only two of them are distinctly analog and take the most effort to maintain.I take no real solace in the notion that I am somehow manipulating or creating time by moving the hands of the clocks in my house forward or back. Since it takes my time to do either one, I suspect that I am going to be out a good fifteen minutes twice a year, working to keep track of this arbitrary shift.
I also take no solace in the knowledge that the idea for daylight savings time dates back to the ancient Romans and has often been credited to one of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, even though his was somewhat more tongue in cheek. I understand that this extra hour of sunlight is intended to stimulate our economy, and as economic stimulus packages go, this is a far cry cheaper than billions of dollars in tax refunds. I also understand that when all is said and done, it is still a sum-zero equation, where the hour that we gained disappears six months later. I know that there are places where energy use is happily impacted as well.
As I was pondering all of these concerns, I was struck by the one thing that is certain: Time, as Alan Parsons suggested, keeps flowing like a river, and even the amount of time it has taken me to put down my thoughts on the matter is never coming back. The time that I used to spend holding my son's hand as we walked across the street is gone. The time that I spent worrying about hair care products has receded as well. The past has passed, and now I can only steel myself for the return of daylight standard time and the cheap thrills to be gained by beating the clock.