Change the time? No, let's change the schedules and the 'prime time'

Well, "they" have already changed the time. Who? "They." The entity that does things inevitably, from another dimension or from a machine room full of bored bureaucrats pressing buttons. They are the "they" of our parents, who were the ones who exclaimed, when the power went out and it wasn't our fault: "It's them..." How relieved they were that "it was them," that the whole street was without power, to complain collectively and call "repairs" (in those days of landline phones with a cord coiled like a very long curl, they always said "telefonear" (to telephone), and not "llamar" (to call)) knowing that surely someone else would have called first. There must be someone, of course, who is the first to call. The one who breaks the news for the first time, "there's no light on such and such a street," and to whom they reply: "Ah, well, I'll make a note," or some similar formula. It has never happened to me. I'm not the one who calls, I'm the one who thinks someone else will have already called. In an adventure series, I am the superfluous character who would die immediately. I have no initiative, no leadership skills, no strange abilities; I don't know how to operate a radio, stop a hemorrhage, make gunpowder, or understand Morse code.

They have changed the time, "they," and now writing these lines, it is still night. In return, it will get dark almost at nine, but why do I want it to get dark almost at nine if there's a curfew at ten and you can't go out for a drink? They always talk to us ("they") about energy saving. I am now writing with the light on, in exchange for what? For not turning it on at night? But if at night I "recojo" (retire/withdraw), which is a verb I love, I love it no matter how you look at it. I don't know if it must exist in French or Italian in the same sense. I withdraw. Which is the opposite sense of this Catalan idiom, which also drives me crazy: "Anar a escampar la boira" (To go scatter the fog/to go for a walk).

That they change the time means that, logically, we are not in a hurry to have dinner. It's daytime. The ancestral custom is to have dinner at night. And of course, the ancestral custom also means that we have breakfast when it starts to "dawn". If I were "them", I would end split shifts, I would propose eating at twelve, having a snack at four, and dinner at seven. I don't tell you the breakfast time, because now, with the arrival of spring, there are many people around me who do this "intermittent fasting", which, in short, means skipping a meal to spend more hours with an empty stomach, which apparently "burns" (I don't doubt it). Doing a kind of healthy Lent, to use the trendy word. Imagine for those who work in hospitality what a marvel it would be to get home at eleven, instead of arriving at three, because dinners have started to be served at six. Yes. If I were "them" I would not change the time. I would change the television prime time. Rociíto would appear on screen when we were sitting at the table with beans and potatoes on the plate: at seven.