The Day After Yesterday: The aftermath of daylight saving

The Day After Yesterday: The aftermath of daylight saving.

Yesterday (Sunday 3rd Dec) was the first day of daylight saving in Perth for nearly 20 years, and I must admit the first day went pretty well. On Saturday night I adjusted all my watches and clocks – I even went around to my grandparents and adjusted their video clock for them, thus cementing myself in their top four favourite grandchildren. “Take that, Blake, Alana, and Michelle!” But I digress…On Sunday morning, I woke up, rode my bike down to Inglewood pool to swim some laps, all at a lazy 10am. However, in UV radiation terms, it was like swimming at only 9am – no sunburn for me - pretty sweet!

Then, after playing in the “Jay Margo ‘Improv’ Softball Invitational” at 4pm down at Yokine Reserve – where I stole so many bases that I hear the police are now looking for me – there was still plenty of daylight left for me to head over to Maccabi grounds and play the Great Chanukah Soccer Comp. In fact even after this finished, there was STILL enough daylight to ride by bike to Fresh Provision to buy milk, plus a few ingredients for dinner.

It was the first sign of trouble. A girl who works there who kind of knows me warned me
“We’re not meant to tell customers this, but we’ve heard from our suppliers that the cows couldn’t be milked this morning, as they are apparently upset with daylight saving.”
“Upset? Who’s upset?”
“The cows! They don’t like daylight saving. They’re pissed off and want us to change the clocks back to how they were.”
“Oh dear, well we can’t just give into their bovine demands – otherwise it won’t end there. You know what cows are like. Give them an inch…”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right” she said, but you could tell that neither us were convinced.

I left the store feeling with a slight eerie feeling. However, I put it behind me, realising that I could always switch to soy milk and just hope that people wouldn’t think that I’m some kind of lactose intolerant bigot.

I was a fool to think that would be the first glitch in the new regime. I woke up this morning, and in the light of day, I noticed that while my vertical blinds were okay, the curtains in my meals area did look a little faded. On closer inspection, more than just a little – they were a lot faded! I was starting to panic just a wee bit, so I phoned my sister to see what the story was with her.
“Hi Mish, it’s me, no time for niceties, sorry. Think very carefully about what I’m going to ask you. Now I want you go and take a good look at your curtains and tell me: DO THEY LOOK FADED?”
“What?”
“Quit stalling, there’s no time for that – ARE YOUR CUTAINS FADED? Yes or no?”
“I don’t have curtain, only blinds. What’s this all about?”
“Sorry to yell…It’s just that I think that my…well, I’m fairly certain actually, that my curtains are faded, and I’m kind of freaking out over here.”
“Ok, calm down, I think your curtains were already faded. They’ve been that way since you moved into that house – it’s a fairly old house, with fairly old curtains.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm. Well, I’m going to have to think about this, I’m not fully convinced.”


So, there I am driving in the car this morning, knowing I am going to have to switch to soy milk next week due to the impending dairy shortage, plus live in a house with faded curtains. I turn the radio to the AM band to get some good news. But there was no good news. I hear on the radio the dams have now almost completely evaporated, apparently due to the ‘extra’ hour of daylight we had. I called my father at his work from the car (hands-free of course), now in a mad panic. I told him what I had just heard regarding the water-shortage, and asked him if it was possible to switch to soy-water. He told me he’d inquire with his suppliers and order some in to his pharmacy. He also said that, now that he thinks about it, the swimming pool was totally empty this morning.
“Really? The swimming pool? Gone? Empty?”
“Oh wait, perhaps I’m thinking of the bath tub. To be honest, I can’t recall which one. I’ll take a look after work and get back to you.”

By the time I got to my desk, I was so distraught that I needed some cheering up. I phoned my comedian buddy Jeff Hewitt (check out the Wikipedia article on him by the way) who also moonlights as a divorce lawyer. He’s very good – he’s drafted all the pre-nuptial contracts I gave to all those girls who wanted to marry me, and I’m still single.

Anyway, Jeff informed me that he had no time to cheer me up. He’s been inundated with all these new clients this morning. “What the?” It seems that with everyone doing outdoor things to all hours, wives weren’t in the kitchen at 6pm to cook dinner for the family, yada yada yada, family break down etc, and Perth society has gone from Pleasantville to Sin City in less than 23 hours.

So that does it, next week I’m getting out of this hell-hole that Perth has become. I’m going to India, where there’s no daylight saving, curtains are gloriously bright, the drinking-water is not a problem, and only 1 in 26 (arranged) marriages ends in divorce. Sadly, the cows still run the show over there, but no society is totally perfect.

A.Frosh
Monday, 4 December 2006