The clocks changed on schedule, the legislation did not, and my flatmate now treats the oven clock as a political prisoner.
CHICAGO, Illinois – I have gained an hour, and I do not know where to put it. At the start of the day it was sitting in the middle of the kitchen like a parcel addressed to someone who used to live here. My flatmate Marguerite stepped over it, said “Daylight saving ended,” in the tone of someone announcing a minor bereavement, and went back to bed.
A List of Grievances, in the Order I Noticed Them
- The oven clock is still on the old time. It has now been wrong for hours, and nobody in the flat has the training to correct it.
- The microwave is also on the old time, but it is wrong by a different amount, so the two machines disagree like a pair of witnesses.
- My phone changed itself silently in the night and has not mentioned it, the way a friend does not mention that they moved house.
- Our building has a hallway clock that Mr Pruitt, the landlord, refuses to touch. He says it is “on a different system”. It is on the same system as everything else, which is a battery.
- My body has been told nothing by anyone.
Breakfast at the Diner, Where Time Is a Matter of Opinion
Marguerite and I went to Dolores’s Hotplate, the diner at the end of our street, which has been open for the whole of my time in America and, if the menu is accurate, since the Eisenhower years. The waitress, who has a gift for sensing when a person is struggling, brought me a coffee the size of a paint tin and said, “Extra hour, huh?”
I said that in Britain we changed our clocks the Sunday before, so for one week the gap between Chicago and home was five hours rather than six. She nodded as if I had told her something about the weather on another planet. Then she said, “So you’ve been living in the wrong time for a week.” I said I had been doing that since I arrived.
What the Senate Did About It, Which Was Nothing
Because it is the morning of a change, every news site has a story about whether the change could be made permanent. Spectrum News 13 in Orlando reports that the House passed the Sunshine Protection Act in July, which would keep daylight saving time all year, but the bill stalled in the Senate. So the clocks changed as usual. The same story is also on the Tampa edition of the same outlet, where it enjoys a second life, like all good ideas that have not yet become law.
I took notes. Florida’s Sen. Rick Scott introduced the bill, and it has bipartisan backing. He posted that Americans are tired of changing clocks. President Donald Trump and Sen. Scott both say the extra evening light would be beneficial. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas opposes it, worrying that dark mornings could put children at school bus stops, and people who start work early, in danger.
I like that both sides have a child in the argument. One side has children playing in the evening sunshine, and the other has children waiting in the morning dark. Neither side is lying, and the clock does not care.
The Part About Federal Law That Made Me Feel Fond of It
Here is the sentence that made me put down my coffee, which took effort. The report says the National Conference of State Legislatures counts Florida among 19 states that have passed laws to keep daylight saving time year-round. But under the federal Uniform Time Act, states may adopt standard time year-round, and they may not adopt daylight saving time year-round. So nineteen state laws are waiting at a door, holding flowers, until the federal government unlocks it.
I find this lovely. In Wales we had a similar arrangement with the footpath behind my gran’s house: lots of people had views about it, and the only person with the key was a man named Gethin who was on holiday.
Afternoon: Marguerite Fixes the Oven
After a long debate, Marguerite corrected the oven clock by pressing a button for the length of a short film. It now shows the right time. The microwave still shows a time that belongs to nobody. “That’s fine,” she said. “Every kitchen needs one rebel.”
I was thinking about the whole business while she did it. A country the size of a continent cannot agree on what hour it is, and yet it is entirely sure about what is for dinner. I find that comforting. A system where the clocks are uncertain and the sandwiches are certain is a system with its priorities in good order.
Since I spent the afternoon with time on my hands, I also read a piece on a farm.fm report headed “Spinach Treatment Targets Citrus Greening”. I cannot say I understood it. But I admired a headline that plainly knows what it wants, which is more than I can say for the Senate calendar.
Evening: A Small Lesson in Local Language
The man who lives upstairs asked if I wanted to “grab a quick drink”, and I said yes, and he looked startled that I meant it. Americans say a lot of things that are not offers. I am learning to listen for the ones that are. For anyone abroad who wants to practise their own version of that, there is a guide to Cockney rhyming slang, which has the useful quality of being impossible to mistake for an offer of anything.
I told him, using the finest Cockney I could manage, that I would have a butcher’s at the clock in the hall, and he smiled politely, the way people do when they have not understood but wish you well. The hallway clock, incidentally, is still on the old system. Mr Pruitt will touch it in spring, he says, “when the weather is on.”
I keep my dispatches for Bohiney Magazine, and for more of my daily notes at The London Prat, you will have to put the kettle on and wait for the next one. I will be here. I have an extra hour.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/