waiting for the great leaps forward

Money can buy a lot of things. A lot of money can buy almost anything.

Case in point, Matthew B. Leavable’s recent appearance before Congress.

An appearance centered around daylight savings time. DST is the practice of setting the clock forward by one hour when there is longer daylight during the day. It starts on the second Sunday in March and then clocks are set back an hour on the first Sunday in November.

Matthew B. Leavable, whose family cornered the calendar market about ten minutes after the first printing press became available in 1436 and built a publishing empire around it, is lobbying for a slight change to that formula. He wants the clocks to be set forward on the second Sunday in March and then again on the first Sunday in November. A total of two hours forward a year, every year.

No going back.

Given that the abbreviations a.m. and p.m. stand for the Latin ante meridiem and post meridiem, before and after midday, it follows that in twelve years that meridiem would look very media nocte… and vice versa. A fact not lost on those in attendance.

His argument went as follows;

“Ladies and gentlemen of congress, and distinguished academics from the fields of Horology and Chronology. If you write something on a piece of paper, something important, and then burn it, it’s gone. You can carefully collect the ashes but you can’t put the paper back together again. You can run expensive chemical analysis on the remains and know exactly what type of paper it was. Believe me, I’ve done it.  You can even tell what kind of ink you used to write the message. You might even be able to tell the color of the ink.

But the message is gone forever.

That message is and was the manifestation of thought. An irreplaceable product of the human mind.

With no way to recover it… unless you go back in time. Somehow rewind until before the match was lit. Before decisions were made. Change both the past and the future.

But you can’t. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Time is what is stopping you.”

It’s at this juncture that he paused for a sip of water. In the background papers were shuffled and chairs creaked.

The aforementioned academics sat back in theirs, chairs, not papers (if that would even be possible), obviously disappointed. In what Matthew had said, not their chairs, to be clear. When they heard about Mr. Leavable’s legislative proposal they wondered what possible reason he could have to wreak havoc on civilization as we know it. To, ironically enough, turn back the hands of time vis-à-vi s progress. Collectively they sighed and waited for the frumpy old turd to continue.

“I know what most of you are thinking. You’re trying to do the math. How many years until day is night and night is day? Wondering if people will slowly adjust their sleep schedules or just work in the dark and sleep during the light whenever needed. Stubborn in their ways as they are. How might this inconvenience me?

I mean, if they can do it near the Arctic, why not New York City?” Papers, perhaps feeling they had been thoroughly shuffled, remained quiet.

This did nothing to improve the spirits of the distinguished academics from the fields of Horology and Chronology. If they were waiting for some dissertation on the evolutionary imperative for humanity to become cathemeral or that that his proposal would help solve issues related to global overpopulation or climate change, they had a long wait ahead of them.

A quick clearing of throat and Matthew B. Leavable began to wrap things up. “There are some of you who are no doubt against this. Those of you who are content to have the clocks on your microwave and in your car be right half the year. You know that if this legislation passes your clocks will only be right for six months every six years. Don’t you think it’s high time that you learn how to change the damn things?” and with that he slapped the table for emphasis and stood up to leave.

There was a small smattering of applause and a more robust smattering of, believing that they had more to contribute to the scene, creaking chairs.

The distinguished academics from the fields of Horology and Chronology jumped up and quickly made their way to intercept Mr. Leavable before he was able to leave the chamber, eager to be the first to congratulate him and offer him their unconditional support for his proposal. After all, the new science buildings on their campuses weren’t going pay for themselves.

Matthew B. Leavable had an unhappy childhood, and when he finally realized that even with all the wealth and influence in the world he would be unable to change that fact, he decided to blame time.

So time better watch itself. He is already working on a draft to make February 29^th occur every year. “Screw the seasons.”

A lot of money hard at work.