Who moved my clock?

Daylight savings has finished. This is the good part about this system is the end bit, when you can sleep in late (well it feels like it)

I wrote this yesterday for the local paper, The Sydney Morning Herald. They have an unpaid reader's column called 'Heckler' and I'm trying to get a submission... one of my goals in becoming a writer.

WHO MOVED MY CLOCK?

I feel like a resident on the NSW/ QLD boarder during daylight savings, not knowing what is the right time. Frantically checking number plate origins and asking locals, what's the time please?

See someone changed my clock. I know the clocks had to change on Sunday but someone or something changed them. I'm alone this weekend, except for the spoodle,... clocks just don't go and update themselves, or do they?

I only changed one clock before bed last night, my mobile phone/ alarm/ virtual life support. It would be my lodestone, telling me the time and giving me the thing we all love about the time change forward... the one hour extra in bed.

But silly me, I woke up switched on the computer, then the kettle, then checked my work mobile and well being on some orange alert for time issues, got all confused and wondered why the computer already knew the time change, but the oven didn't and neither did the digital set top box but the iPhone did.

These devices used to be more polite, messages like ' I intuit a change in your regions' time, would you like to update?' Yes, thank you for asking. My friend's computer just updated hers last week, wrong week mate, but how do you reprimand your computer.?.I was only being helpful, it would probably say.

Someone has to supervise these self-updating computers. Are they changing other things? taking away minutes and hours, telling satellites where you are not, reverting your spelling option back to US English and deleting your cookies. Now they just go ahead and change an hour without asking. So Gen Y. Well like, why be so manual? they'd say.

My cup of tea gets cold while I seek out the correct time. I want to go back to bed and finish the Big Easter Novel but have lost my time-way. Have I two hours or three hours until the family lunch? The dog is now confused, isn't it walking time?

I'm not sure I like the time change on a public holiday. It's mucking up my lazy schedule. I don't know how long to lie in bed for. I prefer the surprise of finding an extra hour for sleeping in on a weekday.

The answer lies in the abandoned watch draw. The yellowing swatch, my 6th Grade watch and importantly the watch I was wearing 6 months ago (because I use my mobile to tell the time). I line up all the watches and satisfyingly they all tell the same time. The right time. Now, back to bed.