The clock on your microwave is wrong.

Nov 03, 2024 —

Whoever wrote the headline probably thought they were creating clickbait:  “We set the clocks back this Sunday. Here’s what you need to know.”

I didn’t click on the article, so I have no way of knowing whether I am about to cover exactly the same ground, but here goes.

Daylight Saving Time ended at 2:00 this morning.  When you woke up, hopefully more than a couple hours later, you may have noticed a few things:

It was light out. That means it was daytime. Your phone showed the correct time. This is very important, because you depend on that knowledge to know how many hours you have remaining to do today’s Wordle. The clocks on your stove, microwave, and coffee maker showed the wrong time. This is nothing new, because they always show the wrong time.  What’s more, they all show different wrong times.  The end - and the beginning - of Daylight Saving Time give you the chance to find the instruction manuals for these devices and set their clocks so that they are accurate for two days a year.  The clocks on these appliances might have shown the correct time, if you own those newfangled devices that are connected to the internet at all times. These new devices combine the advantages of having accurate clocks with the advantages of having a Russian hacker turn off your front burner before the ramen noodles are done. The clock in your car was accurate, because you forgot to change it at the start of Daylight Saving Time, and you’ve been subtracting an hour ever since, or showing up for everything really early. You’ve received half a dozen emails reminding you to change the batteries in your smoke detector.

I imagine the article also reflected on how the time change may have affected your small children, or your dogs, or your hermit crabs.  For example, your small children or dogs may have wanted to eat at 7:30 instead of 8:30 this morning, in which case you should employ the technique that parents and dog people have employed for years - stall and distract.  Add an extra 15 seconds to everything you do.  Slooooow diaper change.  Extra belly scritches.  Repeat one of the verses of the song you sing to your hermit crab while you’re looking for your hermit crab food.  Extra long belly scritches for your hermit crab.

Here at the North Words World Media Headquarters and Pizza Bistro, our dogs - Muesli the Schnoodle and her upbeat sidekick Linus the Cockapoo - were happy to sleep in for an extra 45 minutes, until they woke up and immediately demanded to pick up where they left off last night, when they were fighting over their two identical chewy bones in a dramatic debate with incomprehensible plot points.

In short, it’s going to get dark an hour earlier today than it did yesterday.  But it got light an hour earlier than it did yesterday.  And tomorrow, you’ll note that it’s pleasantly light out when you drive to work or school, complain that it’s already dark out when you come back home at night, and wonder why your ramen noodles aren’t cooked. 

And by Tuesday, you’ll be resigned to our collective winter daylight fate, during which you envy the hermit crabs among us, who can at least retreat back into their shells.