City Life

Leap Day, Shmeep Day

How February’s quirky on-again, off-again extra day is ruining everything

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Happy Leap Day?

Yes, that should be a question and not an exclamation because, as people affected by adulthood, Leap Day is kind of the worst. As a kid it’s admittedly pretty rad. “It takes us an extra day to get around the sun every four years? Time and space are crazy!” But for a grown up, not so much. “It takes us an extra day to get around the sun every four years? So we get an extra day off right? No? Time and space are a couple of jerks!”

Working an extra day not enough of an inconvenience for you? Here are five reasons why Leap Day should be burned off of your calendar with a hot poker.


People who have birthdays on February 29
Much like Leap Day itself, people with birthdays on February 29 are a novelty when you’re in elementary school. However, around the office these people are insufferable. You know that thing they do where they say that they’re only as old as the number of Leap Days that have occurred during their lifetime? Awful. “Monday’s my fourteenth birthday!” No it isn’t, Deb, you’re 56. Deal with it.

The extra day of work between you and that vacation you’ve been planning for years

Like Robinson Crusoe, you’ve been carving a hash mark in your cube every day since you booked that trip, fooling yourself into thinking that with each new scar on the wall you’re much closer to a week of freedom. Planetary physics are cold and heartless and care little of your all-inclusive sojourn to Acapulco. Ease up on penning that hilarious “out of office” response, dude, there’s still plenty of time to take care of it. Plenty of time.

No one will believe you when you claim to “not acknowledge” Leap Day
You can try to Costanza your way out of Leap Day – though in true Costanza fashion it will only blow up spectacularly (and hilariously!) in your face. By choosing to publicly disavow Leap Day by citing some cultural practice you’ve completely made up, you won’t be avoiding an extra day of work so much as you will be throwing a massive kink in your own schedule. Everything you need to get done will now need to be done a whole day earlier because as far as you’re concerned it’s really March 1. Plus parading around the office “reassuring” people that you’ll all be back on the same schedule in 2068 – a year you settled on using no science whatsoever (but who’s going to argue?) – will make you sound like ass.

Gross. It’s on a Monday

You don’t need to be a lasagna-loving cat who may or may not be real to hate Mondays. They exist to be hated. They’re so bad that they ruin half of most Sundays simply by virtue of always being there the next morning. So when a Monday is also a Leap Day you need to wonder if cruel, unseen forces are manipulating the very fabric of space and time to create a soul-sucking vortex, a Garfield Singularity if you will, from which no form of happiness could possibly escape.

Facebook is going to be even more terrible
Memes that crumble under the scrutiny of even the laziest of Google searches. Friends who are withholding major announcements until the 29th to make them extra special. The sheer volume of posts that chronicle filling out the wrong date on things. Facebook is really going to put the leap into Leap Day - as in it will make you want to leap into oncoming traffic. On the plus side, Facebook did just launch alternatives to simply Liking a post. Put that Angry button to good use, people.

leap day, providence monthly, tony pacitti, leap day is the worst, george costanza, garfield, robinson crusoe, physics

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