Feb. 01--February is a rip-off.
It's a scam posing as a month.
Your February passes, memberships, cable bill, rent, retainers -- even in a leap year, such as 2016, when you get an extra day -- routinely deliver less bang for your buck than they should.
You can rationalize February in your mind by saying these payments even out over a 12-month-year. You might choose to note that some 30-day months also have as few as 20 weekdays and even some 31-day months have as few as eight weekend days.
Even on that basis, however, you get less time to cobble together your payments due in March than you would if February weren't shorting you on days.
Meanwhile, some months have has many as 10 weekend days and 23 weekdays. February only has four weekends and either 20 or 21 weekdays. It's the Monday of months (can't trust that day).
Let's be clear: February's length is not among the world's biggest problems. Given time and temperature, for example, temperature needs attention first. Yet when it comes to the calendar year, things move glacially slow -- slower actually.
The Gregorian calendar we currently embrace dates back more than 400 years to Pope Gregory XIII. It was meant to supplant the Julian calendar that Julius Caesar introduced in 46 B.C., which was seen as having too many leap days.
The British Empire (including the future United States) didn't make the switch to the Gregorian calendar until 1752. Greece held out until the 1920s, and there remain countries such as Nepal and Saudi Arabia that don't use it.
But every calendar year here in America, February takes us for a ride, and we choose to ignore it like some beloved movie's gaping plot hole.
Consider the calendar we now have. Go ahead, sing the little song to yourself if it helps -- "Thirty days hath September ..." -- we'll wait.
We hath seven months with 31 days, four with 30 and then there's this scrawny cheat of 28 days, 29 tops.
If January gave up a day on one side and March a day on the other, they and February would all have 30 days in most years. That would result in a more equitable mix of seven 30-day months and five 31-day months, which would even to six and six when a 31st day is added to February or some other month in leap years.
