Leapfrog Day

Well, the proverbial (but not actually proverbial) Leap Day is upon us! Happy February the 29th, my dear readers! As always, Leap Day is a day to contemplate our inadequacies and failings. I’ve got six loathing sessions planned for the day, and I hate myself because that’s two less than last year. But in all seriousness, this date is one that lives in infamy in my heart. It is a painful expression of how… Actually, if I’m going to do this right, let’s set some things straight first:

Television has led me to believe that my life is quite lacking in many ways, not the least of which is that I was born without a twin. Just think of all the crazy shenanigans I could get myself into. I could accidentally ask two girls our on the same night! Oh, how hilarity would ensue! Or what if a new teacher came to my school and my twin and I pulled some crazy prank on her or him, leading them to believe they’d entered some alternate plane of existence. Wow, that’d be a hog-whoopin’ good time.

The perfect twins

This is why The 29th of February is such a disappointment to me. I’ve always thought about how much fun it would be to have my birthday on Leap Day, and then how that fun would be exponentially greater if I had a twin whose birthday was either the 28th or 1st. Unfortunately, I was denied this great joy. “It’s Wilson’s sixteenth birthday, but it’s only my fourth.” Wow, I’m almost having convulsions the idea is so funny.

But then again, what if my twin were evil? One must consider these things. What if I were the evil twin? For matters involving evil twins, I will defer to Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields, who knows enough to write a song about it:


I wish I had an evil twin
running ’round doing people in
I wish I had a very bad
and evil twin to do my will
to cull and conquer, cut and kill
just like I would
if I weren’t good
and if I knew where to begin

down and down we go
how low no one would know
sometimes the good life wears thin
I wish I had an evil twin

my evil twin would lie and steal
and he would stink of sex appeal
all men would writhe
beneath his scythe
he’d send the pretty ones to me
and they would think that I was he
I’d hurt them and I’d go scot free

I’d get no blame and feel no shame
’cause evil’s not my cup of tea

down and down we go
how low one would not need to know
all my life there should have been
an evil twin

Merritt certainly blurs the lines between the good and the bad twin. Who am I (besides Jean Valjean, of course)? Maybe the whole twin business is a bit more difficult than I had ever before imagined. Thanks for the song, Merritt.

I take back my complaints – the last thing I need is another person to measure myself against. Okay, Leap Day, here I come!