Like most U.S. residents, I went to bed on Saturday, March 12th knowing that I was going to have a bad night’s sleep. Unless you can sleep-in at will, in which case I deeply resent you, you will get an hour less of slumber when Daylight Savings Time begins.
I am the Queen of Insomnia, one of my most irritating, self-appointed titles. It does not matter what is going on the next day; anything from a stressful conference call to hosting a simple backyard barbeque to taking a dog for a routine veterinary appointment will all interfere with my slumber. But I consoled myself that the time change meant that my clock would register a normal waking time in the morning, even if I had to sacrifice an hour of repose to get there.
But the night’s sleep was grimmer than I expected.
I do not know when things started going badly. Sometime after midnight, Boomer the Greatest Nighttime Sleeping Dog started booping me with his nose under my arm. Usually, the boops start at about 5:20 am, unless I am foolish enough to stir at 5:00, in which case he decides that I am awake and ready to get up. I scolded him, but he persisted. Clearly, something was wrong. I crawled out of bed and remarked to my deeply slumbering spouse that my rest was over, that I would not be able to get back to sleep. Boomer bolted to the back door, and when I opened it, he raced outside and promptly threw up.
At 4:00 am, I got a spam telephone call. Though I try to turn off my cellphone at bedtime, I do not always remember to do so. My frustration was boundless. I cursed the originators of the spam call, the technology and analytics that routed the call to my phone, and myself for forgetting to turn the phone off. Somehow, I managed to get back to sleep.
But the worst was yet to come; I had a nightmare of mammoth proportions.
I dreamed I was in federal bankruptcy court for a critical hearing on a high-profile Chapter 11 Reorganization case. My law partner had filed a motion to convert the case to Chapter 7, but a personal emergency precluded him from arguing it. The case was hotly contested: the debtor-in-possession was frantic about losing control through the appointment of a trustee and the unsecured creditors were angry about what conversion might mean for payment of their claims.
I had assured my partner that I could handle the hearing with aplomb; after all, I was not a neophyte in this arena. But when I got to court, I had trouble finding the pleadings in my briefcase. I fumbled around for them again and again, my anxiety spiking. Though I knew the facts well, I needed the briefs for case citations during oral argument. I regained my composure just enough to realize that I needed to leave the courtroom and spread out the contents of my briefcase. I sauntered quietly up to the bailiff and asked that our matter be placed at the bottom of the calendar. She glared at me but nodded almost imperceptively. I scuttled out of the courtroom, breathing deeply to control my angst, convinced that my paperwork was in my briefcase. I just needed to parse through my belongings carefully.
But instead of finding myself in a quiet courthouse hallway, I entered a noisy gymnasium filled with cheerleaders practicing their routines, basketball players performing passing drills, and the sounds of a marching band in the background. I dropped to my knees and emptied my briefcase, which was filled with paperwork I did not need. I rifled through documents with increasing urgency, and as I did so, my belongings became mixed up with piles of binders, books, papers, and goods that were not mine, but which were overflowing all around me. My panic knew no bounds.
Then I woke up -- my relief was palpable beyond articulation.
Ordinarily, I do not think about time-change controversies, but now I am a convert. Let’s never do another one of those again.