Can Daylight Saving Time kill you? What about giant unicorn pool floats?

Watch too much TV news, and you expect everything to end in tragedy.

Things are always ending in tragedy on the news, especially things that started out happy until something went wrong, and then they’re even more tragic. Sometimes this tragic transition from happiness to tragedy also is said to be “ironic.”

“A family outing to CELEBRATE a child’s BIRTHDAY turns to TRAGEDY,” the anchors say, and when they put it that way, you know they don’t mean Mama dropped the cake or Creepy the Clown showed up drunk.

That alarmist voice seeps into your head, even if you don’t watch cable news, like some people do 24-7.

I don’t watch cable, because it’s mostly people arguing with each other, and I hear enough people argue. If I want to hear more arguments, I’ll go to a school board meeting, or a council meeting, or leave whatever murder trial I’m covering and walk down the hall to divorce court.

I watch only the evening news, meaning the local affiliates and the networks, where all the TV ads tell me either I need to take a drug with a long list of side effects or I need to sue over a drug with a long list of side effects.

I expect that one day both ads will be about the same drug, so the second one says, “Did you just take Notaxa because of the previous commercial? Have you already suffered serious side effects? Call Takem and Stickit, attorneys at law.”

Even just an hour to 90 minutes of TV news each day leaves an alarming anchor voice in your head telling you that whatever drama’s coming up, it’s going to be tragic.

The other day I saw a Cosmopolitan magazine report about a giant $150 Sam’s Club pool float, shaped like a “rainbow unicorn,” that seats up to six people, with cupholders and space for a cooler.

And that TV news voice in my head said, “Coming up: A FAMILY OUTING turns to TRAGEDY when SIX PEOPLE are SWEPT AWAY in a GIANT RAINBOW UNICORN POOL FLOAT!”

Because you know that’s going to happen, right? If the rainbow unicorn pool float has room for six people and a cooler, then it has space for a gas grill and a dart board.

And while you’re having a cookout in your inflatable unicorn, why not take it out on the ocean? Or float it down the whitewater course? Why not tie it to the back of a speedboat so you can grill out on Lake Harding and go tubing at the same time?

Speaking of things that can turn tragic, don’t forget Daylight Saving Time.

“Can the SWITCH to Daylight Saving Time KILL you?” anchors should be asking, because it can, you know: Studies show more people have strokes in the two days after they lose an hour’s sleep springing forward.

Also more people have heart attacks, traffic accidents and workplace injuries the Monday and Tuesday after the time switch.

Such dire consequences make reports on this dangerous annual event reminiscent of yearly warnings about how sad Christmas can be, because some people get really depressed around Christmas, and that’s why they go to Walmart and beat each other up.

Now I wonder why we never hear about the dangers of Easter, like, “Can Easter KILL you? Scientists warn deviled eggs, baked ham, milk chocolate high in cholesterol, sugar, saturated fat.”

Plus you lose all that sleep going to sunrise service.

Time is running out to suffer the tragic effects of Daylight Saving Time, so we should work on alarming Easter news reports – not to imagine someone getting killed, but maybe something still tragic like:

“A family’s security camera records a neighbor STEALING the children’s EASTER BASKETS! Now this BUNNY GRUBBER is off to PETER COTTONJAIL!”

This story was originally published March 11, 2018 at 3:12 PM with the headline "Can Daylight Saving Time kill you? What about giant unicorn pool floats?."