Well, Now I'm REALLY Confused!

By the time you read this it will be old news but I am profoundly confused just the same. Tonight is the annual torture of switching back to daylight savings time - ye ole spring forward, if you will. And my brain being what it is started to question the whole notion. I understand making the most of the daylight hours and conserving energy and all that stuff.

What I didn't get was why the "Big Switch" happens at a bizarre hour like 2 AM. Who waits until 2 AM to change their clock? Don't most of us change the clock right about now (10 PM EST - pre switch for those of you who have already done the switch and gone to bed) and hit the hay and wake up when the alarm sounds an hour too soon in the morning? What is the point of the whole 2 AM deal? So I, in my infinite wisdom and with my high tech researching skills, went to the almighty Google in search of the answer. Here is what I found.

Daylight Saving Time goes into effect in most of U.S.
By Michael Kitchen
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Most of the U.S. will move to Daylight Saving Time at 2 a.m. Sunday. Arizona, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa are the exceptions, as they do not observe the shift in time. The U.S. previously switched to Daylight Saving each year on the first Sunday in April, but in 2007, the start date was moved to the second Sunday in March. Standard Time is slated to resume on the first Sunday in November.

Please tell me you saw the part where the exceptions are listed. I get the outlying islands. They are in their own little time zones or aren't even full states anyway which brings Alaska into question but we'll get back to that. But what is up with Arizona? It IS still part of the contiguous 48 right? So if I fly to Phoenix tomorrow I'll get my hour back? Or did they not give it up in the first place? How do Arizonians keep track of it if they are on completely different time than the rest of us? There have to be a lot of missed flights for the first couple of weeks, wouldn't you think?

Now Alaska, do they change time? I mean by now they are coming to the end of the really long nights anyway so do they even bother with all the time changing?

I'm so completely confused. I did some more searching after I got around the whole brain bender about who has to change time and who doesn't and found out that the whole thing was a war measure used to conserve fuel and energy in World War 1. So now I know the why it happens in general.

But I still don't know why it happens in the middle of the night. I guess I'll hit up Wikipedia next. Wait. Nope. Wiki didn't know either. It's like someone just threw a dart at the clock and said "2 AM it is!" I mean, I don't really care. It's the middle of the night and I sleep through it anyway or at least I did before I had children. There's a very good chance I'll actually see the time change this year. What was I saying? Oh yeah. 2 AM.

Well, either way. Sleep well and go to bed soon. And don't forget to schedule a nap tomorrow.