Today is leap day, an extra day on the calendar that is added to the end of February every four years to adjust for the extra quarter day each year that the earth takes to orbit the sun.
Cartoonist Al Capp, creator of Lil Abner, honored the day by creating Sadie Hawkins Day. It was the one day every four years when a chase was arranged for the otherwise hopeless and uncourted spinsters of Dogpatch to chase all the town's available bachelors. While the guys were given a head start, feminine desperation and stamina seemed to trump masculine speed and agility. Any captured bachelor dragged across the finish line before sunset had to marry the woman who dragged him there.
If leap day didn't exist this year, we could have skipped over today and gone directly to tomorrow. We would have missed another winter storm, I would not have had the opportunity to have an early morning root canal, and the bachelors of Dogpatch would still be free. It's not that the day was too long, we just didn't need it this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment