Welcome to Thursday Things! This week we lean in to Leap Day and wish a Happy Birthday! to all Leap Year babies around the world. This is your day!
If you enjoy this edition, please click the heart icon in the header or at the end of the post to let me know.
I thought every day was Leap Day. Photo by Jack Hamilton on Unsplash
Leap Day!
Leap Day, the day so special that it only comes around every four years!
History.com gives us 5 Things You May Not Know About Leap Day.
Leap Day was introduced by Julius Caesar. Old Julius sure did love messing around with the calendar.
Many ancient calendars had entire leap months. It’s complicated.
People born on February 29 are known as leaplings. Or sometimes leapers. Famous leaplings include the late Dinah Shore (1916), the hyperactive Tony Robbins (1960), and Fyre Festival impresario1 Ja Rule.
Leap over to the article for the other two Leap Year facts.
La Bougie du Sapeur
February 29 marks the publication of latest issue of the world's only quadrennial, or four-yearly newspaper, La Bougie du Sapeur, published in France.
Leap year: French readers enjoy world’s only four-year newspaper
The world's only quadrennial, or four-yearly newspaper, has hit the kiosks again in France with the release of a new issue of the satirical La Bougie du Sapeur.
The singularity of the 20-page tabloid is that it comes out only on 29 February - so once every leap-year.
The first edition was in 1980, and this is issue 12.
Conceived by a group of friends who "wanted to have a laugh", La Bougie du Sapeur (The Sapper's Candle) has a print run of 200,000.
It is priced at €4.90 (£4.20), and more than meets its costs.
"After the first issue sold out in two days, the newsagents were clamouring for more copies - so we said fine, but only in four years' time!", says editor Jean d'Indy, whose main job is running the French equivalent of the Jockey Club.
"The paper's still put out by a few pals. We meet in a bar and toss around ideas over drinks. We have a lot of fun, and if the reader does too, that's the icing on the cake," Mr d'Indy says.
Styling itself as anti-politically correct, La Bougie is organised like a regular newspaper, with sections on politics, sport, international affairs, arts, puzzles and celebrity gossip.
… The paper does not appear online and can be bought only at newsagents and newspaper kiosks.
"I hope we are a bit of fresh air every four years," says d'Indy. "These days people need to be able to laugh."
And I thought only publishing every Thursday was taking it easy! Maybe I should launch Leap Year Things and get back to you in 2028…
Leap Baby Life
Let’s take a moment to consider the ups and downs of being a leapling. On the one hand, you’re special! You get to be in an exclusive club, part of a relatively rare group, like being a redhead or left-handed.
And if you’re a left-handed redhead leap baby, you’ve hit the trifecta!
On the other hand — three years out of four you have to celebrate your birthday on a day that isn’t your actual birthday. You probably have to endure the same jokes, questions, and comments year after year.
In Scotland, it is considered unlucky to be born on February 29. Possibly you could be considered a witch.
But this is my speculation as a left-handed non-leapling. Let’s hear from some actual Leap Day babies!
Opinion: Parents who fear a leap day birthday are making a big mistake
Usually, deciding on a child’s date of birth isn’t something parents have to worry about after the baby is born. And yet, it’s a choice my mom faced when I was born on 10-something p.m. on leap day.
February 29 is a horological abnormality, appearing only once every four years. Every other year, the calendar goes straight from February 28 to March 1. My mom told me that the hospital staff not merely offered, but urged her to change my birthdate to March 1. This was in the Soviet Union, which was a communist dictatorship, and communist dictatorships aren’t known for encouraging uniqueness and individuality. “It’ll be simpler for everyone,” the doctors assured her.
It turns out communists aren’t the only ones wary of leap day birthdays. The chances of being born on February 29 are about 1 out of 1,461. But even with those tiny odds, there are still markedly fewer babies with February 29 birthdays than the math says there should be. The reason is parents who seek to avoid what they think of as an undesirable and weird birthday by scheduling induced labor and C-sections for February 28 or March 1, instead.
That last bit surprised me — that some parents and/or doctors actively try to avoid having a leap baby even by going so far as induced labor or a C-section. That’s nuts! Why would you do that?
The rest of Mr. Golinkin’s essay about his life as a leapling — including the existential question of when one celebrates his birthday when his birthday isn’t there — makes for a short amusing read.
Reaching back to 2016, this Vox piece compiled interviews with eight leap babies, covering a variety of questions:
What’s it like to be a leap year baby? I talked with 8 of them to find out.
When do leap year babies celebrate their birthdays? “This is an existential question for leap babies. The community is divided into "28thers" and "1sters," as one reader, Phil Haney, told me.”
Is there pressure to have a blowout celebration every four years when the real date rolls around? You can probably guess the answer to this one…
Does everyone make the joke that you’re a quarter of your actual age? And this one…
What happens when leap year babies turn 21? Apparently most leap babies try their luck getting in to a bar on the 28th, regardless of whether they are 28thers or 1sters. Usually it works. But sometimes:
Haney didn’t have a problem, either, until months after his 21st birthday. But one night, he went to a bar in his hometown, and the bouncer threatened to confiscate his license over the birth date listed.
Evidently, the bouncer hadn’t ever heard of leap year.
"He was positive it was a fake ID and was real proud of himself that he had caught me," he said. "He thought I was the idiot for having a fake ID that didn't even have a real birthdate on it."
Haney recounted trying frantically to explain the concept of leap year to the bouncer, while the bouncer started bending his ID in half. Thankfully, a waitress noticed the ruckus and rushed over to straighten things out.
Bouncers aren’t hired for their brains, I guess.
Do forms or official documents ever pose a problem? Web forms, license renewals and other official documents are a source of irritation. Also, at least formerly, so was Facebook:
But the stakes are higher on Facebook. Unlike many less sophisticated websites, Facebook does recognize February 29 as a valid birth date. But for years, the social network didn’t know how to adapt during non-leap years.
On February 28, it would alert users that their friend’s birthday was coming up the next day. But on March 1 ... nothing.
"That’s how I knew who my real friends were," Haney said.
Most leap year babies say Facebook has since fixed the glitch, and, per the government’s example, it defaults to March 1.
Do leap day babies share a particular bond? I can only assume they’re all part of a secret society that has a secret handshake and secret meetings that the rest of us aren’t invited to.
What are the biggest perks of having a leap year birthday? It turns out that (aside from 2/29 Secret Society meetings) there are quite a few, including free food and drink Leap Year birthday specials that non-leaplings don’t get on our birthdays. And sometimes even free travel and other perks!
My conclusion is that three years out of four, being a leapling is more of a bother than not. Much like a brood of cicadas, the leaplings of the world lie in wait for the their moment to come again.
And then, as the calendar catches up with its astronomical slippage, the Leap Babies of the world rejoice, because this is their year!
Leap on, leaplings!
Thank you for reading!
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Never forget.