This past Sunday around our house, we all got up, rubbed our eyes, stared at the clock and tried to figure out what time it was. The kids asked me whether it was time to get ready for Sunday school. I just shrugged my shoulders, said, "Beats me!" and poured a cup of coffee.

It happens twice a year, and we know months in advance that it's coming, but I never get used to Daylight Saving Time. I stand around muttering, over and over, "spring forward, fall back, spring forward ..." a phrase we all memorized in elementary school, like "e equals mc squared," but something we don't really know how to put into practice.

Daylight Saving Time was invented by politicians in Congress who, as everyone knows, have no idea how to solve any real problems, and therefore spend all their time coming up with stuff that at least makes them look busy. When they ran out of other stupid ideas, one of them said "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could make people move their clocks back? We could give them an extra hour, making everyone happy, but then later -- get this -- we'll take it away!" (This, of course, is the very principle on which Washington is based.)

It's all too much for me. Part of the problem is that I barely know what time it is on normal days. I know what time to get up (when the alarm rings on weekdays, and not until the dog needs to pee on weekends). Other than that, I rely on others. I know it's time to go to bed when the announcer says, "Stay tuned for your local broadcast news!" One day, the computer guy at work reset the clock on the office computer network and messed it up by one hour. I went home early, took off my jacket and tie, and stared at the TV wondering why the evening news wasn't on yet.

Actually resetting our clocks presents a whole different set of problems. The clock above our window, for instance, is the one we use to get the kids out the door to school. We've firmly established that they have to leave by 21 past the hour to avoid missing the bus (at 22 past the hour, I start calling out alarms, and by 25 past the hour, I'm yelling loud enough to scare the dog).

The problem is that the kitchen clock is four minutes fast. If I reset it, and put it at the correct time, the kids will be 4 minutes late for the bus. If I leave it as it is, it will be an admission (to myself, at least) that I can't handle even the most basic of problems.

So I avoid setting some of the clocks, then spend the next four or five days staring suspiciously at all the clocks, unable to remember if this is one that I reset, or one I decided I couldn't deal with. Sometimes, I'll even wonder if I set a particular clock back twice, and will walk around looking at the other clocks in the house, trying to get a majority opinion on the correct hour.

I suppose this wouldn't be such a problem if, twice a year, I'd be disciplined enough to go to each clock in the house before we go to bed and fastidiously set the time back one hour. But let's face it, if you spend a Saturday night, any Saturday night, walking around your house carefully setting your clocks back, you need to spend more time and effort on your social life. (If, by saying that, I've offended anyone who spent the evening of Nov. 3 setting their clocks back, I'm sorry. But, let's be honest -- you wish you had more friends.)

If I get too frazzled by all this, I can always go into my kitchen, where the stove, the microwave, the coffee maker, and even that under-the-counter radio we spent too much on because we thought it would be classy to listen to classical music while we ate dinner but never really do, are all blinking out the exact same time: 12:00.

All the other clocks are niggling away at me, whispering, "Am I an hour late, an hour fast, or maybe just off by four minutes? You'll never know, now will you?" But the digital readouts on my appliances soothingly blink out the same numbers, over and over, saying, "Relax! It's lunchtime! Make yourself a sandwich!"

I can sit back, basking in their comforting red glow, and forget about my worries. After all, I've got all the time in the world.