Those of you who were awake at 1:59 a.m. on Sunday, March 13th might have noticed something strange. Our digital clocks edged closer and closer to 2 a.m. counting down the seconds until — boom! It was suddenly 3 in the morning. In one tick of a grandfather clock’s hands, we had lost an entire hour to the void that is “Daylight Savings Time.” Until we fall back by an hour on November 6, our lives cannot possibly remain the same.

The only rational course of action, when faced with such a radical paradigm shift, is to make the shift work for you.

Here are some excuses you can use to shift your scapegoat-radar away from your parents and blame this past week’s failings on DST:

1. For when you complained that the week felt like it would never end …

DST stole an hour of our weekend, making the weekday longer by comparison. This automatically absolves you from any of the dumb choices you made this week. You were just acting out in protest of the unequal playing field that daylight savings brings.

2. For when you whined about how much you hated Mondays …

DST fell right before a Monday, underscoring how awful and drawn out Mondays can be. This validates any complaints you made because last Monday happened to truly be the worst out of all the other days before it.

3. For when you failed to hand in your homework …

Consider both that college students’ time comes at a premium, and that college students often need to invest a certain number of hours to understand course materials. DST screwed with college students’ delicately balanced schedules and robbed them of the final hour they needed to finish their assignments. If you cannot relate to this example, you are probably your professor’s pet (sorry, someone had to tell you!).

4. For when you went to sleep at 5 a.m. on a Tuesday …

DST shook your foundational beliefs in how time works. Now, nothing about time is certain. Is more sleep truly better for your overall wellbeing? Did you go to bed at 5 a.m., or was it 5:30 a.m.? What does a half hour matter? What does a half hour mean?

5. For when you literally ran into a tree …

The one-hour shift messed up your internal clock, which in turn messed with all of your internal senses, like your senses of direction and balance.