Every four years they (the people in charge of the time space continuum?) have to add an extra day to the calendar because the earth isn’t quite up to speed. The result: Leap Year.
Leap Year is not to be confused with the mediocre Amy Adams movie from a few years ago. It was based on the tradition that it is just fine if a woman proposes to a man on February 29, and that the man must accept. I figure if that is the basis of your marriage, then go ahead and give her your heart. While you’re at it, give her your pants, because she’s going to be wearing them. I digress…
February is already the strange month, then they go changing it up every four years. I never quite knew the poem to help remember these things. This is how it plays in my head:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November
All the rest have thirty-one,
except for February, cuz it’s dumb.
I can honestly tell you that I don’t know the real ending to that rhyme.
Most of us walk around grousing that we don’t have enough time. We all dream of having an extra day to get things done. Things we want to do, things we need to do, time with the kids, down time, etc. So every four years, we are given the gift of an extra day – and what do we do with it? Nothing. It is just like any other day.
Today, just like yesterday, the kids went to school, and I’m going to work for an extra day so my money-grubbing boss can wring an extra buck out of me. (Have I mentioned that I’m self-employed?)
I think we have blown it. Since today is an extra day, we should treat it like one. – a bonus day – a freebie. It should be a day with no expectations, but full of opportunities to do whatever we would do if we had an extra day.
I wish I could go back in time and start a new family Leap Year tradition. Once every four years, on February 29, I would have pulled the kids out of school, taken the day off, and had a free day. A bonus day to spend with my family. We could have treated today as a gift, instead of just another day. That would have been fun.
But I didn’t, and I haven’t – and now I’ve got to get to work.
Enjoy your plain old boring Wednesday.
mormon humor lds humorist
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
Discover more from Thus We See...
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Hey, the comment system changed. I blame Leap Year. I know you’ve all missed my comments while I was at mandatory work training the last 3 days, so I’ll comment today. All I can say is I’m not self-employed and my company just went from paying us the 1st and 15th to every other week. The rumor mill says they did that so they wouldn’t have to pay us any extra day on the 29th. Either way, I don’t get an extra day’s pay. Bah humbug to leap year.
That’s a great idea! I didn’t think of it either…
Sandy
I did pull one of my kids out of school today. For fun. To build a cake for our Blue and gold tonight. theme : LEAP into scouting.
don’t have kids yet, so this could be a great tradition to start when I do! It would be nice to make it into something somewhat special rather than “just another day”
It’s funny how we all learned that poem slightly different. I learned the ending as:
“Except for February alone,
Which has 28 days clear,
And 29 in each Leap Year”
I loved the movie Leap Year. 🙂 I also love your idea of making leap day a free day… I wish I had read it before tonight, darn it. I’ll do it in 4 years…
Hey! It is my daughter’s birthday today. She is having her 3rd real birthday. 12 years ago today, it was the only day of the year my husband and I were trying to avoid! She was born at 1:00 am-so like it or not, we had a Leap Year baby! We were in a huge hosptial where 30 other babies were born, most of them CHOSE to be induced. It is a fun birthday and so we LOVE Leap Years at our house.
I like the end of your poem better then the way I learned it.
‘Except for February alone,
Which has 28 days clear,
Except in every Leap Year.”
Blah. Boring!
So guess what I’m doing with my boring old extra day? Going to the temple! Hah! I mean . . . um . . . hurrah!
We did a really short day in school today (we homeschool…much like being self employed!) and are taking the afternoon to play outside in our snow that appeared this weekend.
I would LOVE it if the world just treated it like a bonus day and “gave” us it. What a treat that would be! 🙂
Enjoy your boring old Wednesday – take your wife and kids out for super awesome McD’s or something! 😉
I never really thought about celebrating Leap Day either, until I saw another post this morning with a few ideas. The one I liked best was making a Leap Year Time Capsule, that would then be opened in four years. I probably won’t do it, but I think I will go make a journal entry so I have something to look back on next time around.
The last two lines of your poem (as quoted by my mother):
“When short February’s done /
All the rest have thirty-one.”
LOL! Thanks for the idea. I think I’ll play hookie in the snow with my kids today! 🙂
Disneyland is open for 24 hours on Leap Day, from 6 a.m to 6 a.m.
I wish I was there. But I’m at boring old work on a boring old Wednesday also.
What a fun idea! Since my boys are already at school and my husband at work I will have to remember this idea for next leap year 🙂
I want to take the whole day and sleep of course then I would have to drug the children and that would be sad so maybe we will go to the beach instead
What a great idea! That would have been a cool way to do leap year.
=)
Uh, thanks?
Well, I’d say we could make any day a leap day, as in, we could pull the kids out of school and take off work and do something spectacular –and we could do it yearly if we wanted! We could just stick it to the man!
All I want for this extra day is our extra child to be born! No surprise there…
I was mad when I realized the leap year was upon us. It means I have to wait a whole extra day for my husband to come home… After five months, it makes a big difference.
But I always wanted to be born on the 29th! Then I could say I’m 6!