Shedding Extra Light on Your Seasonal Demise

Daylight Savings Time has been with us for almost two weeks and I'm happy to report that you, dear reader, are not dead.

That's not a clever metaphor because I'm neither that smart nor that literate. Oh, I might have been at one time. But:

• 2,340 readings of "Go, Dog, Go!",
• about 6,208 games of "Candyland" (most of which I lost -- a pox on you, Mr. Mint!), and
• a few million viewings of "The Sonny Suite House of iWizard Montana"

have killed the few remaining brain cells the alcohol imbibed during my four years of "higher learning" had pickled and preserved for later use.

There are good reasons why moving the clock an hour ahead makes me fear for your life.

Unless, of course, you live in Hawaii.

Residents in our tropical island state do not observe Daylight Savings Time. This is because federally mandated residency requirements for mai tai consumption, surfboard waxing and suntan-oil slathering makes it impossible to get a good grip on those tiny watch knobs. Frickin' socialist Democratic Congress!

(Conversely, even though most of Arizona does not "spring forward" with the rest of us, I AM extremely concerned about those residents. You should be, too. Clearly, something is not right with people who willingly live in a desert without the express written consent of God via a burning bush. Is it too passé to insert a John McCain joke here? Nah!)

To start with, I'm afraid you could have a massive coronary.

This fear comes from doctors in Sweden who, during a break from their usual research into perfecting penis-enlargement pumps, analyzed the death rates of their fellow citizens. They found the incidence of heart attack is significantly higher in the first three days following the switch to Daylight Savings Time.

Poor dead Swedes -- at least they made it long enough to enjoy a final Feast of St. Prinskorvblodpaltkroppkakor, which celebrates the end of winter with one last massive meal of pork-filling dumplings and blood sausage in a delicate triple-cheese sauce.

Medical science also tells us that, according to a study of Australian death statistics from 1971 to 2001, men in the land of "shrimp on the barbie" (a phrase that never fails to make me think of midgets tag-teaming a buxom plastic doll) kill themselves in droves during the first few weeks following the advancing of the clocks.

Some will say this has to do with the time change messing with the body's circadian rhythms, thus adding stress to the body and mind.

I, however, theorize that the real culprit here is bad Aussie pop music. How else to explain that the rate of self-inflicted deaths reached its zenith in 1988 right around the chart peak of Kyle Minogue's "The Loco-motion"?

Further investigation into possible links to the pre-"Jessie's Girl" singles of Rick Springfield is now underway.

Wait, you say, there must be something good about Daylight Savings Time?

Doesn't that extra hour of exposure to sun help combat seasonal affective disorder and let our bodies produce some vital vitamin D?

Doesn't the added light at rush hour help prevent traffic accidents?

Well, of course, it does!

It also gives us all a greater chance of developing skin cancer.

In scientific terminology, this is known as "a wash."