This weekend we spring forward.
Daylight saving time starts at 2 a.m. Sunday.
“Daylight saving time, or DST, is the period of the year when clocks are moved one hour ahead,” according to information from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. “In the United States, this has the effect of creating more sunlit hours in the evening during months when the weather is the warmest. We advance our clocks ahead one hour at the beginning of DST, and move them back one hour (“spring forward, fall back”) when we return to standard time (ST). The transition from ST to DST has the effect of moving one hour of daylight from the morning to the evening.”
All that means the morning will stay dark a little later but daylight will last an hour later into the afternoon and evening.
The correct term is daylight “saving” time, not daylight savings time, according to USA Today, but “daylight savings time,” is commonly used, especially in America, Australia and Canada.
I do like having the daylight hour later rather than early, but I do not like springing forward or falling behind. For several days I don’t know what time it is. In the autumn it feels like darkness has suddenly descended on the community and in the spring it feels like a springtime tease.
I know there is research that says both time changes put people’s biological rhythms out of whack and cause health conditions beyond just losing an hour sleep. Other studies tie the start of daylight saving time with an increase in car accidents.
The clock change does also provide a good reminder that it is time to change the batteries in your smoke detector.
My family and I got a recent wakeup call about the need to make sure smoke detectors are in good working order.
I brought pizza home for the family. I checked the oven before setting it to preheat because there are often old pizza boxes or a random cookie tray. A few minutes in, we noticed a weird smell, but I knew I had checked the oven, so I wasn’t concerned. While the acrid smell continued to get worse, it wasn’t until I saw black smoke streaming out of the oven that I began to get concerned.
When I went to the oven, I saw the problem. One of my children had slipped a black, plastic ladle into the oven. The ladle was on the top shelf, but melted through that shelf, through the bottom shelf and was now a burning puddle of plastic on the oven floor and bottom burner.
I let the fire go for a bit thinking it was contained and not causing a problem. Rather than burn itself out, the fire gained momentum and the smoke increased significantly but the flames stayed contained. Eventually, I began to worry about the oven and poured baking soda on the fire, extinguishing it.
Some of my kids thought it was cool and others found it frightening.
My wife and I however were less concerned by the chaos than we were with the lack of it. Even as the oven burned, my wife and I noted that our smoke detectors were not going off.
The smoke detectors are hardwired into the home but have battery backups. We replaced the batteries in the smoke detectors (a task which should be easier than it is) and we bought a freestanding smoke detector not wired into our home electric. I will install that detector this weekend. Additionally, we are planning a conversation with a representative from our local fire department to see if they can help us understand what happened.
We feel blessed that the fire was not significant, the oven works, nothing except a ladle was impacted and everyone is safe. We are also grateful for the warning that something was amiss with our detectors. I don’t know what happened, but I know that next time we spring forward or fall behind, I will replace the batteries in my smoke detectors… and complain about not knowing what time it is.
-Mac Cordell is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune