A short post today...I used some of my writing time drafting a letter to "Sue Sue" on her mission instead of blogging:
1. I don't have an issue with the whole Daylight Savings Time in principle. And I really like the earlier start time as NYC is at the start of the Eastern Time Zone which means it can really light really early in the morning, which means kids rise earlier. (Mid to late March was always like "running out the clock" to get to Daylight Savings Time as it would get sunny too soon).
But here's my issue: What idiot decided that 2 a.m. would be the PERFECT time to lose an hour? Sure, it works great in the fall when we gain an hour. Who doesn't love an extra hour of sleep. But seriously...does anyone really desire to give up an hour of sleep? Why don't we lose that hour when we're doing something we hate....or at least gets us to the weekend faster? How cool would it be if we lost that hour at 4 p.m. on Friday....we'd all get to leave work early and have a longer weekend.
For that matter....nearly ANY hour lost during the work week would be preferable to having one less hour on a weekend.
I realize from a practical matter it has to be the nighttime. But at least make it Friday night to Saturday morning so we have a couple of days to adjust to it before having to go to work
2. We've been doing a lot of packing...and purging...this weekend. When I looked in one trash bag, I saw a handful of Christmas toys for the kids from a couple of years ago. Makes you think about the "shelf life" of the things we buy.
I wondered if our purchasing habits would be different if we had to have an "exit strategy" for every item we bought (i.e determining ahead of time when and how we'd discard the item after it had served its usefulness). If we had to commit to keeping -- and using -- something for a full year (under threat of a penalty for not adhering) I think we'd second guess a lot of our purchases. Just think what that money could be used for. Even realizing that some of the things we buy are more disposable than we think (i.e. we'll trash them in a year or so) would provide a sober reality.
And if we were brutally honest, we'd probably admit that 90 percent of the things we buy for our kids for Christmas get tossed aside within three months. Of course....being a marketer of toys, I can't have too many realize that or I'd be out of a job.
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3 comments:
Thanks for making me laugh once again, Mark. I agree with you on DST thing at 2 am. As I was up with the baby in the middle of the night, I was driving myself crazy thinking about what time it actually was....
I read aloud to Karla the 2nd item, hoping that it would sink in. Other people always have more clout.
Purging is perhaps one of my favorite things to do. I think it's good to keep some childhood momentos, but over time, I find that it's easier to part with certain things so you have to go for it. I'm trying to pass this along to Jenny, and she's responding, but there are some things she won't ever throw away. So, I'm wondering if I started throwing away some of those things if she would just forget about them or if she would hold it against me when she discovers it three years from now.
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