Once again we must set the clocks forward because of the start of Daylight Savings Time Sunday at 2 a.m. Once again we’ll be tampering with reality, manipulating the forces of nature — generally living a big fat lie.

To begin with, it does bug me a little bit — well, a whole lot, actually — that this constant cycle exists in which clocks must be turned backward and forward during the course of a year. This is a chore that I really, really, really have come to hate, not only due to its frequency, but because there is no way to do it exactly right.

I have numerous timepieces that I must give attention to in this regard: first there is the clock-radio in my bedroom, which is the most important since I must rely on its alarm each morning. Of course, there is also one on the stereo, another for the microwave, one on the DVD player and one more in the car. I’m sure I left out some.

Then there’s also a wristwatch to deal with — which is the traditional type in which you have to wind the hands around to set the proper time. It’s always a chore to position Mickey Mouse’s minute hand in exactly the right place.

Despite my best-laid plan for adjusting all my timepieces — just in case I’m called to participate in a secret mission in which synchronization of clocks and watches will be a requirement — it never quite works out right.

My game plan for this is always the same: first I do some finger and wrist exercise to get limbered up for the delicate task at “hand” of punching buttons and twisting knobs to achieve the desired results. I then take a deep breath and remember a motivational quote from football coach Vince Lombardi: “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”

Then, armed with confidence, I proceed to the computer and go to a federal government Web site that continually displays the official U.S. time through readings from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and its military counterpart, the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO).

Once a fix on the official time is established, I then attempt to adjust all the clocks in my house accordingly. And though I engage in a meticulous process to set each one with the official time, my plan never seems to succeed — such as skimming through the numbers and not being able to stop on the correct hour, requiring the procedure to be repeated.

I always seem to somehow end up with one clock that’s five minutes ahead, or slower, than the others. Then I have to remember this discrepancy each time I consult that clock for a reading — that is, until the next time change and the repeat of the cycle.

If it seems to you it hasn’t been all that long since when we went off Daylight Saving Time, that is because the last time change occurred only about four months ago, on the first Sunday in November. This was due to a new federal law that added about a month to DST.

Another thing that bugs me about the switch to the new time this Sunday is how people are always ordered to “move your clocks forward before going to bed on Saturday night!” You would think this mandate is coming directly from Father Time, perched atop Mount Olympus. Of course, that advice is aimed at ensuring everyone will wake up to a bright new day reflecting the correct time — as if that really matters in the big scheme of things.

Out of protest, I have been known to balk at this directive by not launching my semi-annual clock-adjustment process until a time of my own choosing; for example, Sunday at 3:47 p.m., or Monday at 9:42 a.m. (For those in the newspaper field and others with ridiculous schedules, that is easy to accomplish.) This has caused scheduling snafus at times, but I do feel good that it allows me to strike back at the system in some small way.

Another thing that irritates me about switching the time forward is that no matter how you slice it, the process involves altering reality from something that is accurate to something that is imaginary, or inaccurate. We are told to believe that it’s 4 o’clock, when in the backs of our minds we all know it’s really 3 o’clock.

I have taken advantage of this phenomenon from time to time, such as waking up to see the big bright letters on the clock-radio flashing 11:30 a.m., but suddenly realizing that I’m not as lazy a slob as I first thought since the “real” time is actually “only” 10:30 a.m.

But it is scary that time — that giant force which has been so important to mankind since, well, the beginning of time — can be so manipulated by a simple government mandate.

It just makes you think that the sky could be the limit in this regard. If an hour can be added or subtracted from the clock at any given time, why couldn’t you spring forward, or fall back, an entire day?

I can foresee uncontrolled possibilities with this, such as going forward 24 hours to find out what tomorrow’s lottery numbers are — just so I can turn the clock back and buy a winning ticket.

Think of what this power could mean if you were late for work or school, or came in past your curfew at night. The capacity to set the clock back could make all the difference between being right on the money and sitting pretty, or one hour late and landing in the doghouse.

So come Monday morning and the start of the next work week, I plan on turning my clocks back an entire day — and hoping no one will notice.

Tom Joyce is a staff reporter for The Mount Airy News. He can be reached at tjoyce@mtairynews.com or 719-1924.