MR WRONG: Gaslight Savings Time

COLUMN DEP’T.

MR WRONG: It's Hate O'Clock Again

WOWEEEE, IT SEEMS like forever since I was here in the Mr Wrongiverse typing a new column, why is that? What in the actual Hell on Earth was I complaining about last week that now seems like it was months ago?

OK, now is March, so last week was last month, and some careful research of my Googles indicates I last egested a fully-formed Mr Wrong column on February 29, a/k/a Leap Day. It was my quadrennial Leap Day column! Maybe that’s why it was so long ago, isn’t Leap Day the end of Leap Year? Well, it should be! I want an Investigation and some Impeachments!

It’s March, which means it’s “time” for the annual Confusion of Daylight! As in Times! We have Savings and Daylight, or Daylight and Standard, yeah. “Daylight” is so annoying to me, I mean, I know it depends on where you live on the Globe, but most days have Daylight, and it’s goddamn lie that there are any Savings of Daylight happening, and I know it’s all about sliding the relativity of the affairs of the day in my Time Zone (Eastern, the best Time Zone, no offense) to where the Daylight supposedly gets maximized, but it’s never gonna be not confusing.

I understand that most people have computer-phones now that are tied into the Cellular Networks, and your phone just blips over to whatever time it is being told it is by Headquarters, but I am not most people! Also, Most People have a sense of what time it is, and anybody rolling into bed Saturday night/Sunday Zero-Dark Hundred Hours, will be in the Arms of Morpheus for a certain amount of hours before their Natural Circadians kick in and they open their peepers, and without looking at a clock, are able to determine if they have had an anticipated amount of rest. You only get the sensation of “Oh yeah, the Time thing” when you finally look at a phone or some other reasonably dependable timepiece. There’s still timepieces that you have to change, like on your Microwave and stuff.

Why don’t they just have permanent fucking Farmer Time? For the Farmers? Give the Farmers first crack at all the Daylights! For the Crops! No Farms, No Food! No Daylight, No Farms! No Food, No Farmers! Etc.! FARM TIME!

Furthermore! What Happened to Permanent Daylight Savings Time? By the Editor of Indignity, no less!

SEASONAL AFFECTATION DEP'T.

What Happened to Permanent Daylight Saving Time?

I WOULD HAVE thought it was too early to worry about saving daylight but when the alarm goes off now it’s still nighttime. Technically it's just about when "civil twilight" takes over from "nautical twilight," but we’re not at sea. We’re on land, with the horizon behind the buildings and the sun below the horizon. I raise the blinds in the younger boy’s room just for the sound and the gesture of it, a little act of duty and betrayal from one non-morning person to another. Neither of us likes it but we have to be on the subway by 7:30.

This is a big pain in my ass this year because I have a big Public Event that I am producing here in Baltimore, Maryland, Eastern Time Zone, and it’s on Sunday, March 10, which means it’s on the first night of stupid fucking Daylight Savings Time!

I need people to show up to my event punctually! We’re watching the Academy Awards, we’re gonna have a red carpet for photos on the way in starting at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time Zone! I can’t have errbody stragglin’ in like a buncha bozos because some of ‘em thought it was an hour ago or whatever, we have a schedule! We gotta do some bar business! The first hour is critical! Of course, this year The Academy or whoever decided to start the Awards an hour earlier, they’re getting it going at 7 p.m., Eastern Time! Eastern Daylight Time! Eastern Stupid Fucking Daylight Savings Time! Of Daylight! Spring Forward!

The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly wherever it can appear. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.

WEATHER REVIEWS

New York City, March 6, 2024

★ The rain had paused overnight, but the forecasts guaranteed it would be coming back. The boys went out the door in their waterproof shoes, the younger one forgetting to bring along the bag with the sneakers he needed for basketball. By midday, when it was time to drop off the basketball shoes, a jagged-edged green mass was sweeping up toward the city on the radar in the weather app. The air was faintly milky with the floating damp. Uptown, the wind was stirring a little. Back at the home subway stop, someone was coming down the stairs in a poncho spattered with droplets. The shower had already moved past any prefatory drizzle into indisputable rain, but from there it just got heavier and heavier through the day, sloshing down and accumulating in sheets. The air blowing in got gustier and colder until it was time to shut it out. The children returned home with their coats glistening with water.

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.

Indignity Morning Podcast No. 232: Is there anyone else?

Tom Scocca • Mar 7, 2024

SIDE PIECES DEP'T.

OVER AT DEFECTOR, your Indignity editor delivered a State of the Union Address:

The State of the Union is a three-and-a-half ton electric pickup truck punching straight through a standard highway guardrail at highway speeds in a laboratory test. The State of the Union is hundreds of thousands, millions, of internal-combustion pickups or SUVs on the road in that weight class. [Applause.] The State of the Union is an old and crumbling parking garage collapsing under a full load of today's vehicles. The State of the Union is that if their car gets bigger, your car gets smaller, unless your car gets bigger, too. [Applause.]

ADVICE DEP’T.

Ask The Sophist

GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Please send your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.

SANDWICH RECIPES DEP’T.

WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich from The Central Cook Book: A Collection of Tested Recipes, compiled and published by Circle Number Three, Central Methodist Church, Raleigh, N.C. in 1924, now in the Public Domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.

Bean Mixtures
Other unusual sandwich mixtures suitable for the hearty picnic sandwich are made from canned beans, either navy or kidney, well drained and then put through the meat chopper.

1. Use one cup of bean pulp and season with green pepper, onion, a few drops of tabasco, a little celery salt and a tablespoon of canned tomato soup, mayonnaise, or cream.
2. Add one-fourth cup or more of finely chopped lean crisp bacon to the above.

Add one-half cup of chopped ham and one teaspoon of prepared mustard to the first mixture.

Sandwiches
Lettuce. Onions. Celery. Tomato. Cheese.

Dice and mix well with mayonnaise, salt and pepper to suit taste.
—Mrs. W. I. Wellons.

Sardine and Egg Sandwich
1 can sardines.
3 boiled eggs.
1 dill pickle.
3 tablespoon mayonnaise.

Chop sardines and eggs together, add pickle and mix with mayonnaise, spread on toasted bread.
—Mrs. R. B. Templeton.

If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.

MARKETING DEP'T.

The second printing of 19 FOLK TALES is now available for gift-giving and personal perusal! Huddle up in the waning weeks of winter with a cozy collection of stories, each of which is concise enough to read while you’re waiting for the heaviest part of the rain to pass.

HMM WEEKLY MINI-ZINE, Subject: GAME SHOW, Joe MacLeod’s account of his Total Experience of a Journey Into Television, expanded from the original published account found here at Hmm Daily. The special MINI ZINE features other viewpoints related to an appearance on, at, and inside the teevee game show Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, available for purchase at SHOPULA.

INDIGNITY is a general-interest publication for a discerning and self-selected audience. We appreciate and depend on your support!