(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - Our little household is decidedly split on the “benefits” of “Spring Forward.”

For example, my wife and son and I are not, repeat not, excited about losing an hour of sleep. I read recently that the average human being functions better with 8-9 hours of sleep.

Wow, I am lucky to get that each week, not day.

Okay, that is a slight exaggeration. I usually get 10-15 hours of sleep a week.

You see, I may have the whip smart brain of a 19 year old, but most days I also have the super efficient waste processing system of a 91 year old. In other words, if I can get by with less than three trips to the bathroom between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., I am either having an unusually restful evening or am in a coma.

Crazy Cat Folks
Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune
Distributed to subscribers for publication by Cagle Cartoons, Inc.

And since I have morphed into my father, I have learned that while it is incredible easy to doze off and go to sleep on the couch any time after 6 pm, it’s is virtually impossible to get back to sleep when you are woken up after midnight.

Once upon a time, I used to never go to bed before midnight. Now I can never go back to bed after midnight. What goes around (literally!), comes around. Even when I am finished with whatever business I had to attend to, my body is just not, not, not ready to go back to sleep. After all, there is Facebook.

To add to that challenge is the fact that we have three cats. And they have set up a schedule in which beginning at 3 a.m. at least one of them is on parent duty. In other words, one cat is tasked with walking up and down on the nearest prone parental form in order to wake that parent up, causing said parent to realize it is time to go to the bathroom, and, oh by the way, FEED THE CATS.

On the rare nights when we manage to sleep through that gentle awakening, the cats then pick loud hissy fights with each other, causing one or more of the humans to get out of bed and launch pillows in their direction. Natch, that then reminds our overactive bladders that it has been at least five minutes since the last tinkle, so you need to get up anyway.

Of course, then all three cats arise and rumble down the hall in order to make the parent think “well, I might as well FEED THE CATS while I’m up.”

We do than in the mistaken belief that the cats will go back to bed and leave us along until the alarm rings at 6 am or so.

Of course that doesn’t happen because by 4 am, the cats have already forgotten they were fed, or they are deviously hoping that a different parent will get up and feed them, not knowing they have already been fed.

Did I mention our cats are well fed?

You’d be surprised how often the 4 am trick works on us. So it goes.

By now, natch, you are wondering what any of this has to do with Spring Forward. I am too. I am writing this at 3 am, my bladder is full and a large cat is sitting on my lap and head butting my face.

Right now I am wondering why I got up. I know there was a reason. Maybe if I check Facebook, I will remember.

Thwopfff.

That was the cat just head butting me again. He seems to think he knows the reason that I am up. Pity, he can’t talk.

Thwopfff.

He must think I am just the densest creature on earth because I am not recognizing the International Cat Signal for FEED THE CATS!!!!

Bummer.

But I digress.

There is little debate amongst the three human residents of Casa de KiffGlo.

Getting up an hour early just plain bites the big one. That is one hour of potential sleep (Thwopff!!!) that we won’t get back until Fall Down in six months.

Speaking of which, we all love Fall Back.  I think we should have Fall Back every day. The Spanish famously have a two hour siesta mid day. That is sooo cilvilized.

But since we Amahricans would get too guilty taking time off at the height of productivity, why not just have the clock add two hours every night at 2 am. I would so sign that petition.

Of course it wouldn’t stop me from the mental siesta I take at 2 pm every day anyway, but let’s just keep that our little secret, okay?

On the other hand, our cats love Spring Ahead. It means that we are easier to roust out of bed at feeding time. Their internal clock is saying 3 am and it is actually 4 am. We humans are thrilled because we are actually “gaining an hour on the danged cats.” Or so we think.

Of course, the cats eventually get smart and start their game an hour earlier.  if you have a pet, “feeding time” is indeed any time between 12:00 am and 11:59 pm, but I digress again.

The cats, oddly enough, absolutely hate Fall Back. It means that the humans are even grumpier because while the cats think it is 3 am, the humans are still at 2 am and that is really deep sleep time. Even overactive bladders are dozing at that point.

I remember about 30 years ago when the state of Alaska embarked on the idiotic idea of putting most the state on the same time zone.

The idea was to “bring us all closer together.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Good one. Bill Sheffield. LMAO! LOL! LOL!

Anyway, in order to get Southeast on time with Los Skanchorage, they made us Fall Back not one but two hours. It just about killed our cats.

Suddenly, 3 am became 1 am and I can assure that the humans in the household were not happy to wake to cats sitting on their chests at 1 am.

So the cats found themselves being violently levitated to the far corners of the bedroom every time they tried to suggest that it might be time to FEED THE CATS.

Eventually they adjusted, but I’m sure that their descendants all over Alaska still suffer the psychic scars to this day.

Thwopfff!

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