Leap Day deserves to be a stat holiday
There is no point in getting an extra 1,440 minutes if you are locked in routine.
Thursday was LEAP DAY. I capitalized it to make it sound more dramatic since Thursday was also be just another Regular Day. There will be no leap parties, leap concerts, leap food, leap TV specials or leap sales on Amazon.
You will just leap once again into the ho-hum.
A leap day is about as exciting as rush hour.
And this quadrennial plot twist to the Gregorian calendar is hardest on service journalism. How do you find “fun facts” on a cultural quirk that is devoid of meaning?
Ah, the Earth’s axial rotation and orbital revolution can be roughly but not precisely measured in an uneven number of days per year! Ah, the Summer Olympics are held on leap years! Ah, those born on Feb. 29 are leaplings!
Even the leapling Tony Robbins can’t give a motivational speech on why any of this matters in the hurly-burly of 2024.
NBC’s “Today” recently tried to stoke the leaper madness with, “25 Leap Year Activities To Celebrate February’s Bonus Day.” It was like reading a grocery list you find in a Sobeys parking lot.
The generic suggestions included “get organized,” “get outside,” “make a special meal” and “play leapfrog.” Yes, that seems sensible. After I’m done work on Thursday, I will ask my wife to bend over while resting her hands on her knees. Then I will press down on the small of her back and catapult the full weight of my body over hers and hopefully stick the landing without ripping out her earrings with my rickety knees.
Then we will crawl into the kitchen to “shake up a leap day cocktail” and prepare a “special meal” while wearing neck braces and reeking of Tiger Balm. Before bedtime, hopefully, we can also “make a time capsule” or “reminisce about past leap years.”
Honey, remember Feb. 29, 2020? Just before the lockdown? Me neither!
Leap Day needs a drastic overhaul. Leap Day needs to be a national holiday.
The Romans didn’t think this through. Screw you, Julius Caesar, or whoever came up with this astronomical hack. There is no better reason for a day off than an extra day. But right now, Leap Day is just an extra day of work.
It’s like getting a free lottery ticket and discovering the grand prize is you pay Doug Ford five bucks. It makes no sense to pretend Leap Day is a bonus. Don’t invite me over for dinner and ask me to cook. Don’t give me an extended warranty and charge me for the floor mats.
Other countries at least try to make Leap Day seem special. As the Washington Post reported Wednesday: “In Ireland, for example, women are encouraged to propose to their partners on leap days, flipping traditional gender roles. In parts of China, children give their parents gifts. In some countries, leap days are popular days for weddings.”
Imagine only having to remember your anniversary every four years.
But on Thursday, my wife won’t ask me to renew our wedding vows. My daughters won’t lavish me with presents. It will be just a Regular Thursday. And why must this “extra day” be shoehorned into the winter doldrums?
Why can’t there be an April 31 or Oct. 32? Why can’t there be one day every four years in which Kanye’s new wife, Bianca Censori, does not go commando in see-through leggings while strolling European streets looking like a zombie with a Skittles fetish?
I am this close to buying that poor woman underwear from the Bay.
An “extra day” in 2024 sounds good until you realize it’s a grand illusion. There is no “extra” to be found anywhere these days. Come Friday, you can’t even get a plastic fork in your food delivery order. The culture is now all about the clawback. We do more for less.
But what is the one thing we all complain about? Not having enough time.
Life has never been busier. That’s why Leap Day should be a statutory holiday.
We deserve to get paid to do nothing for one more day.
Give us a bit more breathing room to catch up on life. Give us a few more hours to calculate the hike to our property taxes. Give us a bonus day to stay abreast of the dystopian circus that is American politics as do-nothing Republicans turn their backs on Ukraine while parroting Russian talking points.
Give us 1,440 minutes to wonder why Mitch McConnell announced Wednesday he’s stepping down when he never once stepped up for democracy. Give us a bonus day to make sense of the revolting antisemitism on display around the world in recent months, including here after a man was charged with vandalizing a statue of Al Waxman in Bellevue Square Park with a pro-Hamas message.
But as it stands, Leap Day is a total waste of time for the rest of us. That’s why you read Leap Day suggestions that include, “Visit a distant relative.” Yes. Hop on a transatlantic flight. Surprise your great aunt while scrambling to get back home before your lunch break ends.
Make Leap Day a national holiday. We need time to make sense of the madness.