Time Zones

I am from Elmhurst, Illinois a suburb outside of Chicago. Notice, I've learned to no longer say I'm "from Chicago". I work in a delicatessen in southwest Michigan. Notice, I will never say I'm "from Michigan".

The drive from Elmhurst to Michigan takes about an hour and a half. Not particularly far. However, if I leave Elmhurst at nine in the morning, I will arrive in Michigan at eleven thirty. What? I thought the drive was only an hour and a half? Why is it eleven thirty?

Greenwich Mean Time. A series of zones that seperate the world into different times. There is some hocus pocus math that goes into it, all about standard deviations of the mean, whatever the hell that means. All I know is that when ever I cross the border from Indiana to Michigan the time ends up being an hour later.

Is it just me, or does this make no fucking sense? When I cross the border, an arbitrary line that seperates two political bodies, not a physical boundry, all of a sudden it is an hour later. What? Why?

I guess I wouldn't mind so much if the entire state of Indiana was on the same time. That might make a little more sense. But it's not! From what I'm told, Bloomington, Indiana operates on Eastern Time, and a place like South Bend is on Central time. C'mon Indiana, get your shit together.

I guess I'm probably being too hard on Indiana, it's not his vault he's been made a victim of our insidious methods of time telling. And I know that different times are necessary, when it get's dark in New York City it's still sunny in Seattle. I know, I know. It's just that here, in the middle of the country, I just never have any idea what time it is. And that makes me sad.

What's worse, my poor telephone got so fed up with changing times that it's just given up entireley. Driving to work yesterday morning at 9:30 eastern, 8:30 central, I pulled out my telephone to make a call. It was operating under the impression that it was 3:30 in the afternoon, two days ago. And that's just not right.

VERDICT: OVERRATED