Whatever are they Saving all that Daylight for?

For almost a century now, our government has been mandating the savings of time, each and every year. For over 200 days per year, we have been saving one hour per day. That makes a total of almost 23,000 hours that we have in the national daylight bank. That’s more than 950 days of sunshine, over two-and-a-half full years.

One has to wonder about the purpose of saving all this daylight. Were our forefathers so interested in the potential of solar energy, that they were willing to sacrifice all that time for future generations? Did they see that there would come a day when the hustle and bustle of everyday life would mean that we didn’t have enough time for the things that really matter? Were they concerned that global warming would turn the sun dark, and wanted to be sure that future generations would have the opportunity to know what sunlight was like?

Regardless of their reason, which has long since been lost in the corridors of history, it’s clear that this was a long-term plan. Even today, we’re still stashing away daylight, against that future cataclysm, which will cause our great-great-great-great-grandchildren to have need of all that stored up sunlight.

I’ve never been able to figure out how they really save that daylight. The Daylight Savings bank must be a truly huge place, in order to be storing daylight for all those years. Why, it’s probably bigger than the Boeing plant in Everett, Washington. I imagine that scientists have come up with some sort of way to compress the daylight, so that it would take up less space. Otherwise, that building would have to be even bigger. After all, it’s storing the daylight of the entire country.

Compressed daylight would have to be even more potent than regular daylight. Forget about sunblock, even SPF 100 wouldn’t mean anything. You’d need a sun shield, something like one inch thick steel plate. Imagine the energy potential. If we could just find a way to harness that concentrated sunlight, we’d end any real or imagined energy crisis. Of course, our modern solar panels would probably just burn up under that concentrated sunlight.

Even with the potential advantages, I’m not sure that I agree with the idea of banking all that daylight. After all, we’re being told to make this sacrifice, without being given any reason why. We don’t even get an opportunity to opt out. Daylight savings time happens, whether we want it to or not. While there are three states which have chosen not to participate, that required the whole state getting up on their proverbial hind legs to say one collective “No!” I guess the rest of the states just don’t have the gumption to do that.

Well, it appears that we’re still going to be banking all that daylight, whether I want to or not. I just hope those future generations, who get to use our daylight, appreciate the sacrifice we’ve made for them. Otherwise, it’s just an exercise in futility.