John Y’s Musings in the Middle: Calendar Equity

Calendar equity? It may be time….

February is soon coming to a close. As usual, too soon.

I don’t say that because anything especially touching or profound happens ever February. Not at all. Just the very literal fact that Feb got the shortest number of days of any of the 12 months.

And over time it’s taken its toll on February’s self-image and self esteem.

It’s one thing to draw the short end of the stick one, two, three years in a row. But over 200 here in just the US! And don’t get me started on the whole Julian Calendar thing. It’s wounded generations of Februaries than can never be made right again.

It’s just that I was born with and have developed in my life a strong sense of social justice. And it’s time that we stand up for February to have equal time.

I commented last week about February have lousy national holidays. Do you think that President’s Day and Groundhog Day being in February is really an accident? It takes confidence and some successes to be able to handle a Thanksgiving or Fourth of July even (although there admittedly would be temporal challenges to moving the 4th to February).

The point is you’ve never heard anyone say, “I can’t wait until February!” Or “I hear we’re going to have an awesome February this year.”

It doesn’t happen.

In fact, we are so impressed, sated, and exhausted from the over-achieving November and December and –to a lesser extent–January, we typically just quietly endure the chronically under-achieving February….and, frankly, don’t even get our hopes up about anything until March 1.

It’s like February, already inferior, has to sit each year next to the three most popular kids in the class. Not fair!

February is like the Kentucky of Presidential Primaries (we get to vote in May to decide if it will be Romney or Santorum or Gingrich or any of the others, if they are still alive, physically and politically).

Sure, primaries (and Februaries) happen. But no one pays attention and neither really matters. Both are done mostly out of habit. More as an afterthought than eagerly anticipated.

I think, perhaps, we should take one day each from May, July and August (none has used efficiently their 31st day) and give those three days to February. February will then at least feel like it’s equal to most other months—with 31 days.

And then every four years, on Leap Year, February can look down it’s nose on all other months. And on that day, for the first time, Leap Year –and February –will totally rock!!

Or maybe…just maybe—and I’d love this!–February could turn the tables on the other “slacker” months by pointing out that it does in 28 days what it takes most the others 31 days to do.