How Many Hours are There in a Day?

For a whole lot of folks there are not enough hours in a day and for another bunch there are too many.

Normally there are 24 hours in a day, except twice a year. The first time a day doesn't have 24 hours is in the late Winter/early Spring, when the so-called day has 23 hours. Then late in the Fall/early Winter there is a so-called day with 25 hours. The powers that be change the actual dates this happens and who knows when they will change the dates again. When we change our clocks for the exact dates and times. (You probably thought it was the same down through the years, but no, it wasn't!)

It seems that many years ago, in 1784 to be exact, good ole Ben Franklin wrote a fanciful essay about saving daylight. It was surely written in jest and no one at the time really took it seriously. The people back then seemed to be more endowed with 'common sense'!

Then in 1916, in an effort to save energy resources, it was decided to actually implement the farce known as 'Daylight Saving Time'. Perhaps it did save some energy, but the amount of energy saved surely did not compensate for the effect of changing the time on the population. Losing an hour of sleep once a year may not seem like such a big deal, but statistics show there are more traffic accidents on the Monday following the 'Spring forward' event. In today's fast paced world most people don't get enough sleep as it is and taking a precious hour of slumber away is tantamount to a criminal act. Not to mention all of the aggravation!

A recent study published by Consumer Reports indicates that Daylight Saving Time is actually costing us more money! While we may be saving the cost of lighting, air conditioning and heating cost us more due to the time changes.

However, I doubt the powers that be that make the decisions will even look at the statistics showing the actual cost and will continue to make the population suffer through losing sleep one day a year.

Martha