Daylight Savings Time

by Horace J. Digby
Winner of the Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor


I can never remember which way to change the clocks. Some people gain an hour each fall. It takes me more than an hour to figure out what time it is. I know the rule, "Spring forward. Fall Back." That's great in theory, but it doesn't work.

Let's say you have an eight o'clock meeting that gets moved forward one hour. That would be seven o'clock. Right? Forward means ahead. Shouldn't daylight time work the same way?

And when we "fall back" to . . . well, I guess it's called, "daylight losing time," shouldn't we move the clocks back? If your eight o'clock flight gets moved back one hour, it leaves at nine o'clock, right? Not seven o'clock.

At our house my son Adam sets the clocks (except of course the ones I personally use). This spring he moved them from eight o'clock back to nine o'clock. It was definitely a "spring forward" situation, so why didn't he move the clocks forward to seven. I figured our clocks were two hours off. But like any right thinking man would do in this situation, I asked my wife. And like any right thinking women, my wife told me I had it wrong. Sharon pointed out that our "atomic clock," which gets time directly from the official-government-atomic-radio waives coming out of Denver, Colorado, agreed with Adam. She was pretty they were right.

Sharon also told me the time had actually changed at two a.m., but she wasn't sure if it changed at "the old two a.m." or "the new two a.m." I worried about that too, until Sharon finally admitted she was just making fun of me. Even so, the daylight-savings-time puzzle was solved, in just under two minutes.

That's when I saw the message on my computer saying its clock had reset itself. I expected it to agree with Adam, Sharon and the "atomic clock," but it didn't. The computer said it was seven o'clock. It also said we were in Tijuana.

I thought it was nine, or possibly ten o'clock. My wife, my son and the "atomic clock" said it was eight o'clock. But my computer, which gets its information directly from the richest man in the world, said it was seven o'clock. Who should I believe?

So I did what I do every year, which is, arrange to be everywhere an hour early. It only takes a week or two for a general consensus to emerge. Then I set my clocks.

I hope you guessed right with your clocks. But if you got it wrong, don't worry. You'll get to try again in six months.

-- Horace J. Digby --
hjdigby@lexingtonfilm.com

Copyright © 2006 Lexington Film, LLC. All rights reserved.

Adventure Cat®

by Horace J. Digby

My pal George Ford has produced a DVD for cats. No kidding. It's called Adventure Cat.® The idea is that your cat can watch this DVD, and then . . . well, I guess that's the whole idea.

George's company, Feathered Phonics, started with a CD for teaching canaries to sing. I figured he would follow up with a CD to teach goldfish to swim, but instead he created Adventure Cat® and it's selling like hot cakes. (No kidding. check it out at, http://www.featheredphonics.com/
adventureseries.htm)

Obviously a DVD for cats will appeal to people who are crazy enough (about their cats) to buy them presents. In the past those people were pretty much limited to buying cat nip. But what kind of example is that for the Youth of America?

"Ok Bobby, for her birthday, let's get Tabby stoned."

And what if Tabby really likes the stuff. Where will she find more. It's an ugly picture: your cat, hanging out in some sleazy inner-city alley, trying to score a dime bag of "nip."

With George's product, you and your cat have a choice. You can just says no? Now, instead of turning Tabby into a junkie, you can turn her into a couch potato. Sure that means more paws fighting over the remote, but at least Tabby won't have to go to rehab again. Besides George is working on a special remote just for cats. (I made that part up.)

Adventure Cat® is so popular George is already releasing Adventure Dog.® It's the same concept, except, you guessed it, this one is for dogs.

I thought this whole idea was silly. What sort of people are going to plunk down hard-earned unemployment checks to buy a DVD for pets? But then I remembered Billy Bass®. Remember that stupid mechanical singing-fish wall plaque? Well, Billy raked in pazoolies a plenty a few years back. (My own mother-in-law bought three of them—for me.)

And Billy Bass® was a wall plaque. When your friends came over they could see that stupid fish hanging on your wall.

"Did you see that?" they would say later, "Lynette has one of those stupid fish hanging on her wall . . ." (I don't know why they would call you "Lynette." They're your friends.)

George's DVD is a lot better than those wall plaques because when friends come over, you can hide it. It will fit in with all your other DVDs and CDs. No one will ever know you bought one. Isn't that great? It's the sort of thing builds a real feeling of pride.

"Sure, maybe I know I'm dumb enough to buy a DVD for cats," you will say, "but none of my friends know it."

The only down side is that your dog and cat might become couch potatoes. But next year George could market a special kitty-couch just for Tabby. Fido will probably want a Barcalounger®.

-- Horace J. Digby --
Copyright © 2005 Lexington Film, LLC. All rights reserved
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