We moved to Colorado from California in 1994 and I knew I would have to adjust to the one hour difference between Pacific and Mountain time. But I was surprised to learn that from a practical standpoint, there is actually a two hour time difference between stay-up-late-and-sleep-in-California time and go-to-bed-early-and-get-up-early-Colorado time.
In California, I started getting sleepy at 11 p.m. But that is midnight mountain time and most people here have been in bed for a couple of hours. In fact, in Denver the 11 o’clock news comes on at 10 p.m. to try and catch people before they fall asleep. Even that wasn’t early enough for some people so now some stations show the 11 o’clock news at 9 p.m. I never worried about calling friends until 10 p.m. in California. Here, the cut-off time is 9 p.m. If she had lived in Denver Dolly Parton would have sung “Working 8 to 4.”
In California I knew that it was later in all of the other time zones. Since moving here, some time zones are earlier than us and some are later. As a result I sometimes get confused. I have a brother who lives in the Eastern Time Zone and my parents are in the Pacific Time Zone. At 10 p.m. if I decide to call one of them, is it later in Washington D.C or in Los Angeles? I got tired of being confused, so I devised a method to help me remember where it was earlier and where it was later. It has to do with the first letter of each time zone. For example, the Eastern Time Zone starts with an “E”. The Central time Zone starts with a “C” which is earlier in the alphabet than “E” so Central time is earlier than Eastern. Mountain Time starts with “M” which is later than both ”C” and “E,” so Mountain Time is after both Eastern and Central . . . no wait, that doesn’t work. Maybe it had to do with the number of letters in the words. I can’t remember anymore but it was a really good system.
I also had to adjust to network shows coming on TV an hour earlier than in California. The announcer guy will usually say something like ”Lost airs on Tuesday at 9, 8 Central.” Now I know that means that it is also on at 8 p.m. here, but why don’t they ever say “9, 8 Mountain?” And why is everything on an hour earlier here? It probably dates back to the pioneer days when farmers and ranchers in Colorado went to bed earlier than the city folk in New York City. Of course, technology was more primitive in the 19th century, so all television shows were in black and white instead of color. The most popular shows back then were Little House on the Prairie, Bonanza and CSI Dodge City.
But the most annoying thing about television in the Mountain Time Zone is that the shows start earlier than they are supposed to. I began noticing this last year when I would always miss the first minute or two of shows I recorded. At first I thought there was something wrong with the internal clock in the TV, but it is correct. I noticed last year that the 10 o’clock news actually starts at 9:59 (you can check this by looking at the time stamp the network shows in the corner of the screen). This year they are starting at 9:58. What’s up with that? At this rate, in 58 more years the 10 o’clock news will start at 9 o’clock and Colorado will be in a different time zone, although I am not sure which one that will be. Why are television stations doing this? It probably has to do with global warming. It also could be part of a conspiracy organized by the Rockefellers and Halliburton to bring us all under a One World Order. There will eventually only be one time zone in the world, we will be forced to learn the metric system, fluoride will be put into our water, we will have to play soccer, and everyone will speak French.
If you don’t buy any of these conspiracy theories, then we are only left with one explanation for the problem. It is all George Bush’s fault.
David LeSueur lives in Littleton, and is usually in bed by 11, 10 Central.