My fellow Americans, I come to you tonight to tell you about my superpower, which most people don’t know I possess. It’s not a flashy superpower, like invisibility or telekinesis, and my superpower can’t be used as a neat party trick to bamboozle guests.
My superpower is sleeping—the age-old thrill of being unconscious, comfortable and alive simultaneously. While sometimes aided by various medications and self-medications, I was born with an innate ability to sleep, uninterrupted, for Herculean chunks of time.
Hold your applause, please. I am now asking you, my friends, to join me in rejecting a pernicious plot against sleepers everywhere.
You see, once a year in the fall—with the fervor some save for various holiday celebrations—I bask in the somnolent glory of Daylight Savings Time turning back to Standard Time and affording us an entire extra hour to devote to this favorite recreation, and my God-given gift.
While many prepare for Halloween and the upcoming pig-wrestling matches—or Election Day—on Nov. 3, I anxiously await—Ativan locked and loaded—for 2 a.m. on Nov. 1.
However, it’s been called to my attention that there are some sadistic fools advocating to eradicate this day of blissful slumber, arguing that Daylight Savings is gratuitous, outdated and unnecessary.
While I agree that turning the clocks ahead in March for Daylight Savings Time to begin, thus mugging us for an hour of sleep, is unforgivable and flat-out unacceptable, turning said clocks back in November should not be open for debate.
While, of course, I realize these two things cannot be mutually exclusive, logic flies out the door when you’re asleep. Or trying to make a point. Or both.
Started in 1918 as a wartime effort to cut fuel costs, Daylight Savings Time has been a refuge for the lazy, like me. And Daylight Savings-deniers love to make false claims that messing with the clocks adversely affects our natural Circadian rhythms and takes an economic toll in the spring when productivity drops following the loss of sleep.
First, who cares if it’s bad for your health? Do you know what is also bad for your health—and illegal? Cocaine. So here’s the solution: I will legalize cocaine for two weeks every spring, and I can guarantee that productivity will not drop while people catch up on their sleep.
Easy-peasy. And if elected, I will make this happen—for America!
And after a pandemic that has resulted in more than 229,000 deaths and 30 million jobs, I realize many people simply can’t bear the idea of an extra hour of 2020. I understand. In fact, no one understands better than me. I am the greatest understander since Abe Lincoln.
But there’s a simple solution to this problem as well: Sleep through it. Go ahead, you have my permission to sleep an extra hour or two or ten. Screw it. After the quarantine—and the prospect of another one—just about everyone is clinically depressed anyway.
So please, I beg of you—the decent voters of America and Daylight Savings-deniers, alike—don’t take my day away from me. Allow me to continue to exercise my superpower. And on Nov. 1, do the right thing and sleep an extra hour or two or ten. And make sleeping great, again.
I’m Nate Graziano, and I endorse this message.
