What time is it for real?

My bedside table is home to stacks of waiting-to-be-read books, a lamp and a clock radio. I’m not even sure how hold my clock radio is, but it’s old technology I contemplate disposing of each time I dust. I don’t use the alarm or the radio. It’s overkill because only the red digital face is meaningful to me. But it has A LOT of meaning.

When I’m tossing and turning in the middle of the night, I peek out of the covers to read the bright red, glow-in-the-dark numbers to see the time. When I’m dressing for work or date night, I check the time on the clock radio. I can count on it because it’s always in the same place and always powered up with it’s continuous fueling from the permanent cord plugged into the wall. If the power goes out, my trusty clock radio will tell me by flashing twelve o’clock over and over until I change it.

I set the clock ahead five minutes, kind of a built in alarm with no sound. When I check the time while scurrying to dress, I am so thankful to know I have five more minutes to step on it. It’s like a five-minute warning before a test is about to end.

My smartphone cannot do any of those things. It is never in the same place. I can’t just check the time with my eyes in the night; I have to pick it up and touch the screen. If I’m getting dressed, the cell phone is probably in another room and I can’t possibly waste precious seconds to check how much time I have before I’m really late.

Currently, we have been out of daylight saving time for twenty days.

Currently, my bedroom clock is still saving time, plus five minutes more. I never took back the hour on November 1^st by resetting my clock to “fall back.”

My husband asked, “Are you ever going to change the time on your clock?” He likes the trusty clock too.

“I think about it. But when I wake up in the night to see how much time I have left before my smartphone alarm goes off at 5:20 AM, I’m SO happy I have a WHOLE HOUR more than it really says,” I tell him.

I wake up in the night a lot so I kind of hate to take away that little bit of joy when I’m tossing and turning, thinking about how much sleep I’m missing. I’m not missing that much if my clock is set ahead an hour. I sleep better so I leave it.

Maybe I’ll keep my clock on daylight saving until the next time change in the spring. I won’t have to do anything because my clock is already set. I know people who use that logic for Christmas lights, leaving them up all year. Putting up the lights means flipping a switch.

I won’t even have to flip a switch for “spring forward” time. That makes me happy too.