It’s hard not to want to welcome the arrival of spring. This is especially true since my winters hold a lot less skiing than they used to and a lot more shoveling. Now that winter is more about searching for lost mittens than a quiet trail through a beautiful woods, there’s not much left to recommend it.

If there is one thing that has begun to lean in winter’s favor, it is winter’s lack of Daylight Saving Time.

DST used to be a good thing. It used to let carefree, childless me play outside after work. It used to lend itself to pleasant evenings in open-air seating with friends, food, and spirits.

Now, all DST does is convince children it can’t possibly be time to go to bed. We spent all their lives training them to sleep at night, and now demand they go to bed in the middle of the afternoon.

Can you believe people actually wrote to Congress asking them to prevent me from having a quiet moment to myself at night?

This time of year is enough trouble without DST, but why settle for a little trouble when we can have a lot?

Nobody told the sun school is still in session. He stays up late, mocking children who have to go to bed before him.

Big Brother understands DST and the growing days of spring, but it still makes him angry. It’s darker when we wake him up than when he goes to bed. That must be why he prefers morning sleep.

A few short months ago, Buster and Big Man (formerly New Baby) were checked out by 8. Now, 10 o’clock is a good night. They can’t tell time, but they know when they can still see the colors of things outside. Day means play.

Congress must be eager to add more playtime to their days after work, the way they’ve kept spreading DST out over the calendar, but don’t those guys pretty much come and go as they please anyway?

They say it helps farmers, which is something I might buy if there were more than three family farms left. Aren’t all the farms owned by G.E. or some similar giant corporation? Can’t they just manufacture bigger light bulbs to use in the corn field factory?

. . . because you won’t have a minute alone with your wife until November. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

Of all parental responsibilities, putting kids to bed is one of my top 1,000 least favorite. You know what, kids? I have work in the morning, which means I have to go to bed at a reasonable hour, which means every second you resist sleep is a second taken from the only precious little chunk of down time I’m getting today. So don’t look at the sun, or any of the natural time cues you recognize; look at the clock, that man-made fabrication dictating our lives and begging, nay commanding, you to go to sleep so I can have a quiet cup of tea, or during these rough nights of Daylight Saving Time, scotch.

On the other hand, I don’t relish the idea of them getting up at 4:30 a.m., so can I get three cheers for that wonderful sunrise delayer known as Daylight Saving Time?