That day has arrived, the highly anticipated moment that only comes twice a year and completely rocks your world. No, I’m not talking about the two times a year you have sex, I’m talking about Daylight Savings Time.
I’m not a big fan. The morning of the time change we run around the house furiously, trying to set every clock back as if a giant comet will slam into the earth and wipe out humankind if we don’t get it all done by 8 a.m. Just when we think we’ve adjusted every clock, watch, radio, and appliance timer in the house, we’re reminded that there’s the matter of the dashboard clock in the car to attend to. That in itself takes 45 minutes, trying to cram the end of a paperclip into a microscopic opening while simultaneously pushing the correct buttons with the other hand, crossing us up and eliciting curses that aren’t appropriate for a Sunday morning.
I highly recommend leaving the clocks alone and just waiting six months until they move back one hour again, but that doesn’t seem to be a popular opinion.
Instead, everyone complains about the hour of sleep they’re going to lose, so much so that they lose 2.3 hours just talking about it. I have to admit, when someone cheerily tells me “Don’t forget to spring forward eight Sundays from now!” I want to slap them. And if I hear another bad joke about how we lost an hour, I’m going to kick someone in their balls. We did not lose an hour. You can’t just “lose” an hour (other than by watching Burn Notice.) And we don’t ever “get” an extra couple hours of daylight. They’re all out there anyway, no matter if we set our clocks backward or forward or stand on our heads and speak in tongues.
I understand it used to be a “sunlight thing,” but why didn’t people just wake up one hour earlier? Wouldn’t that have been easier than all of this nonsense? Imagine if aliens came down and examined our society from an objective, clinical viewpoint. There would only be one conclusion they could come up with about the bizarre concept of Daylight Savings Time, before they got in their spaceship and went back to the planet Zerthion Phobius 9.2 and sent another flaming comet down to blow us up: whoever invented Daylight Savings Time was really, really high.
You have to smoke something pretty strong to come up with: “Dude let’s just pretend that it’s an hour earlier, and we’ll tell everyone to change their clocks at exactly the same time, all over the world. Yeah, that will work. Now light that incense and roll up another one.”
A little internet digging reveals that a nice fella named George Vernon Hudson from New Zealand invented Daylight Savings time in 1895. I’m telling you, Georgie was smoking the good shit. He's #1 on our list. DST was used on and off in Europe during times of war, but didn’t even become universal in the United States until the 1970’s, to help cut electricity usage during the energy crisis. The 1970’s? People talk about DST like it was some biblical mandate.
This all led me to thinking, as it often does, who else throughout history probably smoked marijuana.
Some of them seem obvious…
2. Whoever came up with the spelling for “Wednesday” was definitely hitting the pipe. (I recommend we officially change it to “Humpday.”)
3. The astrologists who all of a sudden decided Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore were baked. How are you a planet one day and then you’re just a 5,000 mile round ball of rocks the next day? That’s like saying one day, “Sorry New Jersey, you’re not a state anymore.” Well, bad example – that would actually make sense. But you know what I mean.
4. Who else? Albert Einstein? What do you think? Have you seen his hair? He shagged Marilyn Monroe. That dude could party.
5. Mother Theresa probably hit the bong every once and a while – she was WAY too nice.
6. Ben Franklin was as high as a kite.
7. Michael Jackson was an alien.
8. Whoever built the pyramids had to be smoking reefer. In fact, the Egyptian Pharaohs did use marijuana for its health and transcendental benefits.
9. Christopher Columbus carried cannabis sativa seeds on board his ships, and thus takes credit for introducing marijuana to the Americas. No wonder why he sailed hecka slow and kept getting lost.
10. Queen Victoria’s private physician prescribed marijuana when she had bad menstrual cramps.
11. Joan of Arc led the French army to victory over the British in the 15th century when she was only 19 years old, but then was accused of using “witch drugs” (including cannabis) and burned at the stake. She probably fucked up the rotation. Puff, puff, pass, Joan.
12. They’ve found residue of cannabis on clay pipes unearthed from William Shakespeare’s garden in England, though he would claim “Doth thinketh it belongs to yee landscaper.”
13. Jesus was a hippie, walking around the dessert with Birkenstocks and stinking of patchouli oil, never having any money or bringing enough food, but somehow still making do. I saw him selling hash brownies at a Dave Matthews show in Colorado once – true story.
14. Buddha? He sat around naked except for a loincloth with half-closed eyes as people brought him incense and snacks as offerings. Yeah, that’s an easy one.
15. Michelangelo had to be stoned when he painted the ceiling of the Sixteen Chapels. That’s a lot of manual labor.
16. Thomas Jefferson grew marijuana.
17. So did George Washington.
18. Michael Phelps, who won more Olympic medals than anyone else in history, had the munchies so bad that Subway signed him as a spokesperson.
19. Clinton tried it but couldn’t figure out the inhale thing correctly,
20. Where Barrack Obama got it right.
21. Not only did George Bush smoke weed, but Mr. “War on Drugs, God talks directly to me,” was a sloppy drunk and a big cokehead when he went to Yale.
22. Al Gore invented marijuana.
23. The ancient Greeks gave marijuana to teenage boys to try and calm their sexual urges enough to sleep through the night
Who else are some documented marijuana smokers throughout history?
24. Winston Churchill,
25. Walt Disney,
26. The Chinese emperors,
27. John F. Kennedy,
28-30. Mega-wealthy entrepreneurs Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and Sir Richard Branson.
That’s pretty good company. Me, personally? I can care less about smoking or not smoking these days, but I’m glad to see the U.S. is starting to get its head out of its ass and loosening up on a plant that’s been on earth as long as we human beings have.
But either way, please, I’m begging you, someone get stoned enough to come up with a better idea than the Daylight Savings Time thing.
Wait…what’s that? What did you say? Someone just reminded me cheerily to “remember to spring forward today, buddy, because we lost an hour.” Please excuse me for a second – I have to go kick someone in the balls.
I’m not a big fan. The morning of the time change we run around the house furiously, trying to set every clock back as if a giant comet will slam into the earth and wipe out humankind if we don’t get it all done by 8 a.m. Just when we think we’ve adjusted every clock, watch, radio, and appliance timer in the house, we’re reminded that there’s the matter of the dashboard clock in the car to attend to. That in itself takes 45 minutes, trying to cram the end of a paperclip into a microscopic opening while simultaneously pushing the correct buttons with the other hand, crossing us up and eliciting curses that aren’t appropriate for a Sunday morning.
I highly recommend leaving the clocks alone and just waiting six months until they move back one hour again, but that doesn’t seem to be a popular opinion.
Instead, everyone complains about the hour of sleep they’re going to lose, so much so that they lose 2.3 hours just talking about it. I have to admit, when someone cheerily tells me “Don’t forget to spring forward eight Sundays from now!” I want to slap them. And if I hear another bad joke about how we lost an hour, I’m going to kick someone in their balls. We did not lose an hour. You can’t just “lose” an hour (other than by watching Burn Notice.) And we don’t ever “get” an extra couple hours of daylight. They’re all out there anyway, no matter if we set our clocks backward or forward or stand on our heads and speak in tongues.
I understand it used to be a “sunlight thing,” but why didn’t people just wake up one hour earlier? Wouldn’t that have been easier than all of this nonsense? Imagine if aliens came down and examined our society from an objective, clinical viewpoint. There would only be one conclusion they could come up with about the bizarre concept of Daylight Savings Time, before they got in their spaceship and went back to the planet Zerthion Phobius 9.2 and sent another flaming comet down to blow us up: whoever invented Daylight Savings Time was really, really high.
You have to smoke something pretty strong to come up with: “Dude let’s just pretend that it’s an hour earlier, and we’ll tell everyone to change their clocks at exactly the same time, all over the world. Yeah, that will work. Now light that incense and roll up another one.”
A little internet digging reveals that a nice fella named George Vernon Hudson from New Zealand invented Daylight Savings time in 1895. I’m telling you, Georgie was smoking the good shit. He's #1 on our list. DST was used on and off in Europe during times of war, but didn’t even become universal in the United States until the 1970’s, to help cut electricity usage during the energy crisis. The 1970’s? People talk about DST like it was some biblical mandate.
This all led me to thinking, as it often does, who else throughout history probably smoked marijuana.
Some of them seem obvious…
2. Whoever came up with the spelling for “Wednesday” was definitely hitting the pipe. (I recommend we officially change it to “Humpday.”)
3. The astrologists who all of a sudden decided Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore were baked. How are you a planet one day and then you’re just a 5,000 mile round ball of rocks the next day? That’s like saying one day, “Sorry New Jersey, you’re not a state anymore.” Well, bad example – that would actually make sense. But you know what I mean.
4. Who else? Albert Einstein? What do you think? Have you seen his hair? He shagged Marilyn Monroe. That dude could party.
5. Mother Theresa probably hit the bong every once and a while – she was WAY too nice.
6. Ben Franklin was as high as a kite.
7. Michael Jackson was an alien.
8. Whoever built the pyramids had to be smoking reefer. In fact, the Egyptian Pharaohs did use marijuana for its health and transcendental benefits.
9. Christopher Columbus carried cannabis sativa seeds on board his ships, and thus takes credit for introducing marijuana to the Americas. No wonder why he sailed hecka slow and kept getting lost.
10. Queen Victoria’s private physician prescribed marijuana when she had bad menstrual cramps.
11. Joan of Arc led the French army to victory over the British in the 15th century when she was only 19 years old, but then was accused of using “witch drugs” (including cannabis) and burned at the stake. She probably fucked up the rotation. Puff, puff, pass, Joan.
12. They’ve found residue of cannabis on clay pipes unearthed from William Shakespeare’s garden in England, though he would claim “Doth thinketh it belongs to yee landscaper.”
13. Jesus was a hippie, walking around the dessert with Birkenstocks and stinking of patchouli oil, never having any money or bringing enough food, but somehow still making do. I saw him selling hash brownies at a Dave Matthews show in Colorado once – true story.
14. Buddha? He sat around naked except for a loincloth with half-closed eyes as people brought him incense and snacks as offerings. Yeah, that’s an easy one.
15. Michelangelo had to be stoned when he painted the ceiling of the Sixteen Chapels. That’s a lot of manual labor.
16. Thomas Jefferson grew marijuana.
17. So did George Washington.
18. Michael Phelps, who won more Olympic medals than anyone else in history, had the munchies so bad that Subway signed him as a spokesperson.
19. Clinton tried it but couldn’t figure out the inhale thing correctly,
20. Where Barrack Obama got it right.
21. Not only did George Bush smoke weed, but Mr. “War on Drugs, God talks directly to me,” was a sloppy drunk and a big cokehead when he went to Yale.
22. Al Gore invented marijuana.
23. The ancient Greeks gave marijuana to teenage boys to try and calm their sexual urges enough to sleep through the night
Who else are some documented marijuana smokers throughout history?
24. Winston Churchill,
25. Walt Disney,
26. The Chinese emperors,
27. John F. Kennedy,
28-30. Mega-wealthy entrepreneurs Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and Sir Richard Branson.
That’s pretty good company. Me, personally? I can care less about smoking or not smoking these days, but I’m glad to see the U.S. is starting to get its head out of its ass and loosening up on a plant that’s been on earth as long as we human beings have.
But either way, please, I’m begging you, someone get stoned enough to come up with a better idea than the Daylight Savings Time thing.
Wait…what’s that? What did you say? Someone just reminded me cheerily to “remember to spring forward today, buddy, because we lost an hour.” Please excuse me for a second – I have to go kick someone in the balls.
*****
To read more semi-funny writing by Norm I would recommend picking up his new book, South of Normal. Click on the book cover to see more.
Tamarindo, Costa Rica, surf, ski, snowboard, diving, pura vida, Central America, Nicaragua, San Juan del Sur, Amazon best seller, travel, adventure, backpack, hiking, sharks, Endless Summer, Robert August, memoir, fitness journey, globetrotting, perfect beach, paradise, spring break, expat, live abroad, work abroad, summer reading, around the world, great read, humor, laugh out loud, South of Normal, Pushups in the Prayer Room
To read more semi-funny writing by Norm I would recommend picking up his new book, South of Normal. Click on the book cover to see more.
Tamarindo, Costa Rica, surf, ski, snowboard, diving, pura vida, Central America, Nicaragua, San Juan del Sur, Amazon best seller, travel, adventure, backpack, hiking, sharks, Endless Summer, Robert August, memoir, fitness journey, globetrotting, perfect beach, paradise, spring break, expat, live abroad, work abroad, summer reading, around the world, great read, humor, laugh out loud, South of Normal, Pushups in the Prayer Room
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