I figured out what it is about this time of year that makes me yearn for summer. It’s not the cold, as some might think, or even the ever-threatening rainy season. It, in fact, has very little to do with the weather.

It just doesn’t look right.

In much the same way that you pause, cock your head to one side, and look wide-eyed around your room if someone has disturbed the delicate balance in which you left it, the days don’t look like they’re supposed to anymore. It’s as if, while my back was turned, some deity had switched all the trees and moved the sidewalks just 2 inches to the left. Not drastic, just wrong.

It wasn’t until recently that I finally realized what it was about The Now that has always left me so unsettled: I was driving on the highway behind a particularly slow-moving minivan that I was unable to see through or around. I’m fairly patient when it comes to things like traffic, but the not-seeing drives me crazy far more than the lack of speed. Therefore, I drifted over into the left-most portion of my lane and attempted to discern whether there was a myopic grandma at the wheel in front of me, or a myopic grandma at the wheel in front of the wheel in front of me. Not able actually see around Man’s Worst Invention™ I looked for the shadows of cars, and spying one realized that things were fairly backed-up in general, so that I had might as well surrender myself to my fate. Fine.

A few seconds later, while processing my observation, the word “shadows” drifted through the back of my mind looking for somewhere to land. Nothing. I kept focusing on the maroon back of the minivan, and thinking about what I was going to have for lunch. Then “lunch” flipped around in my head and ran into “shadow”… they made a small spark, but not enough to catch anything on fire. I glanced at my clock: 12:00 noon.

Finally “shadows” “lunch” and “noon” all crashed into each other and I realized something: there were really long shadows during lunchtime at noon! There aren’t supposed to be shadows at high-noon. I’m supposed to have my eyes well-shaded by my 10-gallon Stetson while I stare through the heat-waves at Black Bart, waiting for the strike of 12 to pull my six-gun lightening fast and cut him down. The sun shouldn’t be in my eyes, that would just throw my aim off!

And therein lies the problem.

At 10:00AM, it looks like 2:30PM. At noon it looks like 3:00. At 4:30 it looks like 7:30. At 6:00 it looks, well dark… and that’s just wrong. As near as I can tell, in fact, during this time of year the sun never seems to be overhead, instead traveling in a shallow arc off to the side a bit, never actually greeting me full force. This I don’t like, and I, for one, blame The Government. Stupid Daylight Savings Time.

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