Time?! We don't keep no stinkin' time!!

Evidently, time has a whole different concept here. Nothing is when I think it's supposed to be. Take TV for instance - we're central time. You know, as in "8/7 central"? Well, "central" means that anything I've been used to being at a particular time for my whole entire life, is generally a whole hour earlier here. Sometimes that's really cool - I get to see Leno and Letterman before bed. Sometimes, it's just really annoying, because I might really want to watch a show - normally a 9:00 show - you know, they're different than 8:00 shows. If I turn on the TV at 9:00, it's already over. Stinks. The dumbest thing, though, is New Year's Eve. Everyone watches the ball drop at midnight, right? Wrong. Not if you're central time. Here, you get to watch it at 11:00. Period.

TV's not the only thing, either. Evidently, even Denny's determines things should be different here in the Midwest. On Christmas Eve, we had three services, 4:00, 7:00 and 9:00. By the time things wrap up at the 9:00 service and you close down the church (such is the life of a church leadership family), it's almost 11:00. You are tired. You are hungry. You want food. Food for 24 hours a day? Denny's, of course. Nope. Lights are out, not a soul in sight - except other hungry people driving into the parking lot. I didn't even know Denny's had a light switch.