Leap Day

Tomorrow is leap day, the 29^th of February, a special day in that it only happens once every four years. We know a woman who was born on leap day. She has a birthday every four years. So, when she turned 56, she was really only 14. Those folks always win the stuffed toy at the “Guess Your Age” booth at the amusement parks. I never knew anybody who got married on leap day. But if you forgot your anniversary you’d maybe have a good excuse. Except on that fourth year I s’pose. 

My editor wants an extra column from me in February since we have this extra day. Well, I have questions about this extra day in February. For some reason it’s a work day. I don’t get that. Why is it assumed that it’s a work day? Who made that call? It’s a great deal for you teachers and students. You now get finished one day earlier in the spring and have a longer summer. The rest of us? We work an extra day this year, and some of us get to write another column. If you get paid by the hour, good for you. You get paid for that extra day. But If you get paid by the month, you don’t get paid for working that day. Zilch. Nothing. Where’s the outrage? It’s too late to do anything this year, but four years from now, let’s get this extra day turned into a holiday. 

On a more positive note, a reader from San Quentin points out that a leap day counts as one of your days served if you’re in the joint.   

Snow Fury

We had a snow day today for the local schools ‘cause we had like an inch of snow. Whatever. Remember snow days when you were a kid? When you saw snow outside in the morning you had to run downstairs and turn on the TV and watch the crawl at the bottom of the screen to see if your school name was on there.  And, like, if you really had to go to the bathroom or if you left for a minute to let your dog in, you might miss your school on the crawl, and then you’d have to watch the whole alphabet again to see if your school’s name was there. And that scroll would go SO slow. I mean, if somebody really read that slow, they needed more than regular school. Well, I’m convinced that’s how the two hour delay came into existence. The two hour delay was originally nothing more than your superintendent giving you a couple more hours to get ready for school since he or she knew you had to watch that slow crawl at the bottom of your screen for so long to find out if you had school.

Nowadays, kids get calls, texts, emails, snap chats and who knows what from the superintendent when there is a snow day. I’m thinking that we may have this backwards though. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the superintendent to call the child on the days when there IS school, and let the kid sleep in on the snow days? What family couldn’t use an extra call to get a kid out of bed? Is that asking too much? Wake up, America!

The Bus

Don’t you just love these school bus drivers today who wait three minutes in front of a kid’s house for the kid to get dressed and come out? They hold up traffic in each direction at rush hour with their fancy red flashing lights while we all wait. When the kid finally comes out he’s kinda chunky and he’s eating a pop tart and he walks slow. And then you have the mom who sits in a car with her kids in someone’s driveway waiting for the bus. Does this family even live in the district? Somebody please check on this. And Mom, if you’re already gonna pack the kids into the car, maybe, just maybe, you could just drive the kids to school? Gas is cheap now. Aren’t these the same people who come into the neighborhood for Trick or Treat and drop their kids off? (“They’ll never get caught ‘cause nobody can’t see their faces.”) And people think I’m crazy for checking ID’s on Halloween. 

When I was a kid, you had to be tough. We walked 3 miles uphill just to get to the bus stop. Then we stood by these huge puddles at the bus stop and got splashed waiting for the bus. It was a wonder all the kids' cigarettes stayed lit with all that water being splashed around. And the bus didn’t stop to pick you up, it just kinda slowed down. And the bus was cold - the only heat came from the cigarettes.

My neighborhood was so tough that our Sunday School was divided by weight class.

Vet Set

Our family was all in the van driving somewhere over the holidays a few years ago when we spotted a man with a sign by the side of the road which read “Former Vet Please Help”.  I, of course, pulled off the road to help. As I rolled down my window to talk to the man, my younger son said, “Dad! There’s no such thing as a former vet. Either you’re a vet or you’re not.” He was right. So, I handed the checkbook back to my wife and we drove away. I thanked my son for bringing that to my attention.  He’s a bright kid.

As I write this story though, I’m wondering if I acted too quickly and that maybe I should have asked the guy a question or two. ‘Cause it’s possible that he really was a former vet, the only kind of former vet you can be. That, of course, would be a former veterinarian.  But I would expect a homeless veterinarian to have a sign that would read something like “Former Vet. Will neuter pets for food”.

Dentist the Menace

I’m due to see the dentist soon. I think I might be due for x-rays. Those x-rays are intense. Does your dentist still make you wear that heavy shield for your body while the x-rays are being taken? The shield is so thick I always wonder if the hygienist is going to be able to lift it. She puts it on me and then, much like the gas chamber, she leaves the room before throwing the switch. So, like, yeah, I often wonder, what is that x-ray doing to my body? Should I have worn more clothing? (“No, I’ll keep my parka on, thank you.”) What if I gained too much weight over the holidays and I’ve got a little fat exposed that’s not quite covered by the shield? As I sit in the chair I often imagine the headline in the paper after they kill me: “Man With Good Teeth Dies of X-Ray Exposure”. So then the doctor comes in and looks at the x-rays and they’re black and white! What is this? The 50’s? I mean, we have cars that drive themselves but we can’t come up with a color x-ray? C’mon, man.

And then they give you a free toothbrush at the end of the appointment to try to make you forget about the x-ray exposure. At least the toothbrushes are in color. 

&%^$# Phone

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in the future. Isn’t it amazing that we can dictate into our phones and our computers and words appear on a screen in front of us? They aren’t always the words we said but they are words nonetheless. When the wrong words appear I view these as teachable moments and great opportunities to learn about the new words. My phone is better now, but when I first got it, it was often crediting me with having a filthy mouth. I would dictate an innocent message of beautiful prose, and ugly swear words would appear on the screen. The more corrections I would make, the worse it would get. Well, I have never and will never intentionally dictate any swear words. My best guess is that somebody with a thumbprint similar to mine cusses a lot. Or maybe someone with a similar voice cusses a lot? I’ve been told I sound like Donald Trump.  

The cool solution would be to have the phone do like the Beetle Bailey comic strip, and when somebody cusses, print out “$%*^!” instead of the cuss word. (When we were kids we’d try to figure out which cuss words were used in the comics by counting the symbols. I could never quite break the code.) Sure, that Sergeant Snorkel’s got a filthy mouth, but I’m gonna let that slide, ‘cause he’s served our country a long, long time.