Friend of the Site: The Worst Day Ever

Our friend Ben shares his thoughts on February 28th.

We all know that One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do, but have you ever thought about how lonely other units of measurement are? ‘One’ may be the loneliest number, but February 28^th is clearly the loneliest day. Ever since 1582 when Pope Gregory the XIII and the Catholic Church decided to play ‘Mary’ and pop an extra day out of nowhere, the 28^th has been relegated to the role of ‘has been’ and side-show. This was of course a modification of the Julian calendar established by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C.E., and is designed for the sole purpose of keeping the vernal equinox as close to March 21^st as possible. What does this accomplish? An Easter celebration that is calendarily [sic] static! The problem is bunnies don’t really care when Easter is, and they definitely don’t care about February 28^th. They only care about whether there are enough carrots, marshmallow birds and delicious cream filled eggs in their baskets. But February 28^th cares. It cares a lot.

Of course this isn’t exactly the first offense levied against the 28^th. In my time spent with the day I have found enough repressed infantile sexuality that Freud is likely turning over in his nasty little grave. Think about it: the last day of the shortest month of the year? And everyone knows? Arguing that it’s really a normal day and even looks bigger because the month is so short is only lying to yourself. There is a lot of worry in that poor days head.

Only adding to the issue is that the 28^th and 29^th have a terrible relationship. Robin Williams jokes about Canada being the loft apartment over a great party (the U.S.). Well think of February 28^th as the boiler rooms under Middle America’s industrial factories: cold, empty and impotent (the metaphor works when you realize that it’s still February and the winter sucks so its not like the factory floor is that great anyway). Throughout history February the 29^th has been surrounded by an almost bacchanalian aura. It was not so uncommon up through the 1970’s to celebrate a leap year through alcohol. This obviously gave rise to the historical tradition of ‘gender reversal’ on the 29^th, epitomized by the 17^th century play ‘The Maydes Metamorphosis’, which in theatrical form demonstrated that it was not unusual for women to dawn breeches and petticoats and in the small-private-northeast-liberal arts university tradition, do the ‘woo’ing’ themselves. This type of behavior also likely gave rise to the 19^th century New Orleans tradition of including celebratory trials and hangings on the 29^th as well (it was a patriarchal society and if you didn’t have a penis then it was usually unwise to pretend that you do). The libation that filled February 29^th has only begun to fade from our conscience, and that is only because of the prevalence of very poorly made cocktails named after the day.

What I have tried to impress upon you today is to think about the consequences of the leap year. It is not a victimless compensation. Man may suffer eternally, but for our own convenience we have made it so that February 28^th now suffers along side. Every four years the day’s misery is compounded by the return of the 29^th, and so every four years we, as a community, should reflect on the real world impact of our conveniences. Only every four years though, there is no sense in being bogged down all the time.