What will you do with your extra hour this weekend?
Survey says: “Sleep!”
I recently conducted an entirely unscientific poll on Facebook, asking friends what they’ll be doing with that extra hour they get this weekend — courtesy of going off daylight saving time. And you’ll never guess what the overwhelming No. 1 answer was.
OK, so you’ll probably guess.
That’s right. It’s “sleep.”
Really, people?
The one weekend where we set the clocks back and get this magical extra hour of time, and you want to squander it sleeping? Sheesh.
(We should note here that the No. 2 answer to the question was: “Read.” Which is a lot like sleeping, only with a lot more effort.)
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At this point I’d try to suggest to you that “Sleep is the opiate of the masses,” but it’s become painfully apparent in the last year that the real opiate of the masses is, well … opiates. So I suppose that makes sleep more like the “sad default setting of the masses.” Get a little bonus time, and we spend it sawing logs.
Not this weekend warrior.
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We all know what the late, great Warren Zevon had to say on the subject: “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” And even then, it was probably just a quick power nap.
Going off daylight saving time is like finding a $100 bill. You don’t suddenly get all responsible and put it in your 401k. Rather, you blow it on something you wouldn’t ordinarily buy, something totally impetuous and impractical. Like funnel cakes. Yodeling lessons. A live monkey.
Well, time is also money. You do NOT spend an hour’s windfall sleeping, or organizing your closet, or even writing some stupid column. You spend it getting a massage. Or climbing a mountain. Or finally pulling the trigger on that cool tattoo of a fiery unicorn.
C’mon, folks. Be bold this weekend. Make that extra hour count. And to get you thinking, here are a few modest suggestions:
• Spend an hour with a musical instrument you’ve never played before. We’re not looking to make music here, just noise.
• Find an animal to pet for an hour. Preferably one you’re allergic to.
• Stare. Nothing slows the passing of time — stretching that extra hour into what feels like two or three — like simply sitting and gazing, unblinking, at something or someone. Plus, as an added bonus it really weirds people out.
• Grab a fly rod and go fishing somewhere completely unexpected. Like the Great Salt Lake. Or the fountain in front of Union Station. Or the aquariums in a big-box pet store.
• Fine. Take that little nap if you must. OK, I know I said sleeping is lame, but it also depends on where you do it. Like one of those going-out-of-business mattress stores.
• Same with reading. If that’s how you really want to waste your bonus hour, go ahead and read. But at least make it something in a language you don’t speak. Personally, I like getting out all our old owner’s manuals and reading aloud the instructions in various foreign languages. Like, ”Come sostanza pulente, utilizzare solo acqua.”
• Order sashimi at a Japanese restaurant and keep sending it back complaining that it’s undercooked.
• Go to an art gallery, put on a blindfold and ask others to describe the works of art to you.
• Make your own rom-com movie outfit montage. Use your smartphone to video yourself trying on everything in your closet, then edit it, add a classic song from the ’80s like The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me,” and post it to Facebook. If you’re feeling really adventurous, try on your spouse’s outfits.
• Do service for someone who clearly doesn’t need it. Anybody can offer selfless service to the needy, but it takes a real maverick to, say, mow someone’s lawn who uses a yard-care service.
• Go to the lounge area of an upscale bookstore and watch Netflix on your smartphone.
• Take a long, hot bubble bath. In someone else’s bathroom. (Don’t make it too weird. Get permission first.)
• Stand on the side of a busy road and stick out your thumb. When someone finally pulls over to offer you a ride, look them up and down and say, “Ummm, yeah. I don’t think so.”
And finally, while we’re on the subject of daylight saving time, just a quick word to the wise for all you Time Nazis out there who keep complaining about these changes:
I can sort of understand your argument against these time shifts in the spring, when we actually lose an hour. But in the fall, we gain a full hour of weekend fun. Why on earth would anyone make that silly stop-changing-the-clocks argument in November? Save it for March, when The Man is shorting us an hour of well-deserved weekend.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get that fiery unicorn tattoo.
Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/MarkSaal.