A West Virginia man has devoted the extra hour gained from Sunday’s time change to reminding his family what time it would have been if the time had not changed.
Kevin Hensley, 45, began issuing corrections shortly after breakfast and is expected to continue until at least Thanksgiving.
“It says eight, but it’s really nine,” Hensley announced while looking at his phone, which had already adjusted itself.
His wife, Melissa, said the phone appeared to have a better handle on the situation.
“He’s arguing with a device that gets its time from somewhere,” she said. “He gets his from remembering yesterday.”
Hensley maintains that his body remains on the old schedule and that family members deserve regular updates.
At 8:15 a.m., he reported being hungry because it was “really quarter after nine.”
At 9:30, he said the morning was getting away from them.
By 10, he had begun referring to lunch as overdue.
“You can change a clock,” he explained. “You can’t fool your stomach.”
Melissa said his stomach had accepted a second breakfast without raising any concerns about the paperwork.
The household’s clocks have adjusted at different rates.
Both phones changed automatically.
The microwave remained on the old time.
The oven displayed a third time that nobody believes was correct before the change.
Hensley’s truck clock has been waiting for this day since March.
“That one’s right again,” he said. “People told me I needed to fix it. I told them to be patient.”
He has described the development as evidence that some problems resolve themselves.
Melissa asked whether he expected the loose porch railing to follow a similar schedule.
Hensley said they were talking about clocks.
Their oldest daughter said her father’s updates had made it difficult to arrange anything.
“I asked when we were eating,” she said. “He said five, which is really six, but his body would think seven by then.”
She made a sandwich.
Hensley became particularly concerned after noticing the sun getting low in the afternoon.
“It shouldn’t be getting dark this early,” he said.
Melissa reminded him that he had spent the entire day explaining why it would.
He said knowing something was coming did not make it right.
At 4:12 p.m., Hensley stood at the living room window and described the evening as “shot.”
There were still leaves to rake, a ladder to put away, and a porch decoration he had intended to secure before the next rain.
Melissa asked why he had not done those things during the extra hour.
“I wasn’t going to waste it working.”
Family members say Hensley’s use of the phrase “my body clock” has increased considerably since he discovered it could be used to justify lying down before supper.
He reported feeling unusually tired at 5:30.
Melissa noted that he had taken a nap after lunch.
“That was on the old time,” he said.
As a meteorologist, I asked Hensley whether he understood that the amount of daylight had not suddenly changed by an hour merely because the clocks had moved.
He said he understood perfectly.
Then he asked whether I could explain why it was already dark.
I told him the sun does not read the microwave.
He said that was probably for the best, given what Melissa had done to it.
By supper, Hensley had begun supplying both times without being asked.
“Food’s ready at five,” Melissa told the girls.
“Six,” Kevin added.
“Five.”
“Your stomach thinks six.”
“My stomach thinks you should set the table.”
Hensley later clarified that he was simply trying to help everyone adjust.
Melissa said adjustment would proceed more quickly if he stopped announcing the previous arrangement.
“You don’t spend Monday telling everybody it’s really Sunday.”
The disagreement peaked when Hensley suggested going to bed early because his body believed it was later.
Melissa told him that if he intended to continue living in yesterday’s time zone, he could take yesterday’s trash out.
He said it was too dark.
At press time, Hensley had decided to leave the microwave alone.
“It’s nice to have one clock in this house that knows what I’m talking about.”
The Holler Herald — West Virginia’s Least Reliable News Source.
