Feb 15, 2008

Let's take the Leap Day

By Malcolm Fleschner / Humor Columnist

February is, I admit, not my favorite time of year. Mind you, my distaste has nothing to do with the lousy weather, the perennial hand-wringing over what to get my wife for Valentine's Day or even that we begin the month by entrusting our hopes for the onset of spring to the prognosticating powers of a nearsighted rodent. In fact, my beef is not even with the month itself - it's with my fellow Americans, who annoy me to no end with their seeming inability to correctly pronounce the word "February."

Every year at this time a range of professional public speakers, whether actors, media commentators, radio announcers or even as fastidious an observer of the rules of elocution as President Bush, blithely refer to the second month of the year as "Feb-yoo-ary" rather than the preferred pronunciation of "Feb-roo-ary." "There is an 'r' there," I want to shout at the TV. "It's right after the 'b,' I swear! Look for yourself!"

As you're no doubt aware, 2008 is a leap year, meaning that we linguistic sticklers must put up with one extra day of "Feb-yoo-ary." Actually, the so-called "leap day" is by far the best thing February has to offer. It's as if every four years the universe, after getting fed up with all the whining about how there just isn't enough time to get everything done, finally breaks down and says, "OK, here's another 24 hours. Will that shut you up already?"

The sad thing is that, when handed this gift of time, we do so little with it. As usual, Americans will probably treat this Feb. 29 like any other day of the week (except for Dennis Farina fans, that is, who will no doubt celebrate the actor's 64th birthday in uproarious fashion).

Well, I think it's time we make a bigger deal out of Feb. 29. Back in 1989, advice columnist Ann Landers suggested that April 2 be declared "Reconciliation Day," - a date for people to reach out and mend fences with friends and loved ones who, for whatever reason, had become estranged over the years. I think this is a terrific idea. Not Reconciliation Day - I have far too many simmering grudges I'm not even close to letting go of to support that (you know what you did, Great-Aunt Agnes!). No, the terrific idea here is for a self-important newspaper columnist to boldly suggest a new national holiday.

The question then becomes how those of us who aren't huge Dennis Farina fans should celebrate this special day. As far as existing traditions go, there's not much. According to folklore, Feb. 29 has long been known as a day when single women can break convention and propose marriage to men. Historians date this tradition to 1288 when the Scottish Parliament reportedly passed just such a law during the rule of Queen Margaret who, the historians point out, happened to be unattached at the time and growing a little impatient with the Duke of Edinburgh's foot dragging.

While that's not much to hang a holiday on, I do like the idea of celebrating by engaging in some sort of role reversal or "opposite" behavior. Note that this is not the same "opposite day" enjoyed by generations of older brothers, who "celebrate" by asking whether younger brothers would like to get punched in the arm and, upon receiving a "no" answer, say, "Today's opposite day, so 'no' means 'yes,'" and then proceed to whale away. Younger brothers' efforts to wise up to these mind games rarely succeed:

Older Brother: "Do you want to get punched in the arm?"

Younger Brother: "Um, is it opposite day?"

Older Brother: "No."

Younger Brother: "OK, no, I don't want to get - wait, did you say 'no' because it isn't opposite day, or because it really is opposite day and the real answer is 'yes'? Because if that's the case, then yes, I do want to get punched."

Older Brother: "OK" (starts punching).

Instead, my idea for an "opposite day" is to announce that on Feb. 29, all the people who typically get a day off for every nickel-ante federal holiday would have to go to work while everyone else stays home. You know the holidays I'm talking about - Presidents Day, Columbus Day, Flag Day, Arbor Day, Don't Take Your Daughter To Work Day, their own birthday, Honda Dealin' Days - throw a dart at a calendar and you'll likely hit a "holiday" when somebody's kicking back with Oprah while the rest of us are left wondering why the mail didn't get delivered.

Well, I say that once every four years we non-federal employees deserve a phony-baloney holiday all our own. As an added bonus, we could even use this holiday to improve Americans' pronunciation problems by encouraging celebrants to spend Feb. 29 drinking beer and calling it, "Put the 'brew' back in 'February' Day."



E-mail Malcolm Fleschner with your support for this holiday, or any other innovative excuse to take off work, at Malcolm@CultureShlock.com.