Daylight Saving Ruined My Dinner Schedule

Listen. I don’t ask for much in this life. A warm blanket. Some dignity when it rains. Maybe a little cheese now and then. But the ONE thing — the SINGLE thing — I have always been able to count on is my internal clock. It has never failed me. Not once.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday, my humans committed what I can only describe as temporal fraud.

It started Sunday morning. I woke up at my usual time — you know, when the sun hits that perfect angle through the window and my stomach sends up the “breakfast alert” signal. But when I went to the kitchen, my humans were still asleep. Not just sleepy. ASLEEP asleep. Like it was the middle of the night or something.

I did my morning routine: one polite bark, followed by some aggressive tail wagging near the bedroom door, finished with a dramatic sigh loud enough to wake the neighbors. Nothing. They just mumbled something about “one more hour” and “spring forward.”

Spring forward? I thought we were done with cryptic commands after I finally learned “drop it.”

But fine. I’m flexible. I’m adaptable. I went back to my blanket fort and waited.

Then came dinner time.

5:00 PM. My stomach knows it. My soul knows it. Every cell in my body is screaming “DINNER O’CLOCK.” I go to my bowl. I sit next to it. Perfect form. Textbook execution. Award-worthy patience.

My human looks at me and says, “Albie, it’s only 4:00.”

Excuse me?

STAGE ONE: DENIAL

No. Absolutely not. I stared at the bowl. Then at my human. Then back at the bowl. The bowl knows the truth. The bowl and I have an understanding. We have a SCHEDULE.

I stayed there for fifteen minutes. If I just maintain position, I thought, reality will correct itself. The clock will admit it was wrong. My human will realize their mistake.

This did not happen.

STAGE TWO: ANGER

I deployed the sigh. Not just any sigh — the AGGRESSIVE sigh. The one that comes from deep in my soul and says “I am being oppressed and everyone needs to know about it.”

I sighed every thirty seconds for ten minutes straight. I sighed so hard my jowls flapped. I sighed so dramatically that my human asked if I was “feeling okay.”

Feeling okay? FEELING OKAY? My entire understanding of time has been shattered and you’re asking if I’m feeling okay?

STAGE THREE: BARGAINING

Okay. New strategy. If dinner isn’t happening, maybe I can create a distraction and we’ll all forget about this “4:00 PM” nonsense.

I brought my human the leash. Slowly. Mournfully. With the energy of a Victorian orphan asking for more gruel.

“Walk time?” I communicated through eye contact and strategic whimpering.

We went for a walk. But you know what? It was DARK outside. The evening walk is not supposed to be dark. The sun is supposed to be in that pre-sunset position where it makes the grass look extra golden and the squirrels extra visible.

But no. It was DARK. Like morning dark. The shadows were all wrong. I didn’t trust any of them.

Gerald was nowhere to be seen, which was somehow worse. What is he planning under cover of this temporal chaos?

STAGE FOUR: DEPRESSION

When we got back, I went to my bowl. Empty. Still empty. Will always be empty, apparently, because time has lost all meaning.

I laid down next to it. Not on my bed. Not on the couch. Right there on the kitchen floor, next to the bowl, like a museum exhibit titled “Dog Defeated by Daylight Saving Time.”

I stayed there for forty-five minutes. My human took a photo. I didn’t even care. Let them document this injustice. Let the world see what they’ve done.

STAGE FIVE: ACCEPTANCE

Just kidding. I will NEVER accept this.

At 5:00 PM — REAL 5:00 PM, STOMACH 5:00 PM — I got my dinner. My human called it “4:00 PM” but we both know the truth. My internal clock is never wrong. It’s the humans and their clocks that can’t be trusted.

They tried to explain something about “changing the clocks” and “more daylight in the evening,” but I stopped listening after “changing the clocks.” You can’t just CHANGE TIME. That’s not how time works. Time is a sacred contract between me and dinner.

Now it’s been two days and I’m still adjusting. Breakfast comes at what the clock says is 7:00 AM but what my body knows is 6:00 AM. My afternoon nap is all thrown off. I’m tired at the wrong times. The sun is a LIAR and I don’t trust it anymore.

The only silver lining? My evening patrol now happens during darker hours, which means I’m basically operating under night-vision conditions. Gerald won’t know what hit him.

But I’ll never forgive daylight saving time. Never. My stomach and I will remember this betrayal.

5:00 PM means 5:00 PM. I don’t care what the clock says.