The clock gets to stop running at 2 a.m. Deep breath. In 60 minutes, it will still be 2 a.m. (Image from irundoyou.com)

At 2 a.m., most of us folks in the U.S. return to Standard Time. You know what they say: spring ahead, fall back. That was the mantra to help us all back in the day when you actually had to run around the house and change the time by twisting a knob or pushing a button. Clock by clock.

These days, though, so many of the timekeepers in our house are set by the big satellite in the sky that I just don’t worry about it. I’ll open my eyes tomorrow morning and look at the cable box and know it’s 7 a.m. Would have been 8 just yesterday, I’ll think. I know that because one Sunday early last March I woke up at 9 a.m. and thought, would have been 8 just yesterday.

My dear wife Karen undoubtedly will take care of the clock on the coffee maker. I know this because I will fill it up and prepare to set the timer and then exclaim, honey, can you fix the clock so this starts at the right time tomorrow morning? The buttons are small, and there are too many. I have little patience with the digital readout on the coffee maker.

I will have to be the one to change the time on the music-talk magician in my car. (Is it OK with you if I still call it a radio, even though it now includes so much more?) I will sit and stare and try to remember what I did last March. So many cars in my life. Once they started coming with a clock, each and every one has been harder and harder for me to figure out how to change the time. I will again wonder why this latest gizmo doesn’t change itself even though I have satellite radio.

For days, I will marvel at how l like the extra bit of light at the start of my day, and rumble about how it’s dark before dinner.

So, I gained an hour of sleep? I lost an hour of daylight? Maybe, and not really.

It’s all in how you look at it.

I do wonder, though, if perhaps it is time to change these names we’ve given our two time settings.

We’ve just gone through just shy of eight months of Daylight Savings Time. We now face just more than four months of Standard Time. Daylight Savings has become standard. Standard has become scarce.

Confused yet?