Monday, March 12, 2007

An Actual Conversation, More or Less

Her: I love having Daylight Savings time early.

Me: Why?

Her: Because we get more sun earlier in the year.

Me: We don't really get more sun.

Her: Yes, we do.

Me: No, we don't. We don't start actually getting more sunlight than darkness until after the Spring Equinox.

Her: Solstice.

Me: What?

Her: You mean the Spring Solstice. That's what it's called.

Me: What?

Her: Sure. You have the Summer and Winter Equinoxes and the Spring and Fall Solstices.

Me: Okay. Anyway, we aren't getting any more sunlight than normal.

Her: Sure we are.

Me: We aren't. It's not possible.

Her: Then why is it light for so much longer?

Me: Because we bumped our clocks up an hour.

Her: Which means the sun is up longer.

Me: No. That's not how it works.

Her: Then how does it work?

Me: The sun rises later, like at seven instead of six, than means the sun sets later, like at six instead of five.

Her: But that means we get more sun.

Me: No it doesn't. Either way, it's still only eleven or so hours of sunlight.

Her: And I love getting more sun during Daylight Savings.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Correct. Her.

Anonymous said...

Have I ever mentioned that I hate daylight savings time? It is such a pain the the butt.

Jazz said...

Idjit.

Her. Not you.

Johnny Logic said...

If taken charitably, she is right about getting more sun exposure-- at least as a function of most people's schedules shifting in a way that takes advantage of the full amount of daylight available (i.e. getting up at or before sunrise). That is, after all, the whole point of DST.

You are right about everything else and she seems quite confused, generally.

Anonymous said...

it is hard to explain to people when they are wrong and make them understand, but when you do, it certainly is rewarding (at least mentally it is). But you are right, the sun light available is not to be changed just cause we changed the clocks.