So today is the 29th February, a leap day, a day that only comes around once every four years. That makes it kind of magical, doesn’t it? People who are born on this day have a quarter of the birthdays for their age (which is a bit crap for them, actually, but that’s not my problem) because every three years their birth date just doesn’t exist. Folklore would have it that today is a date where the woman can propose to her man rather than the other way around and although in this day and age that seems a little outmoded, it can lead to some fun engagements that may otherwise have been waiting around a little longer.
If I were to gain an extra day, though, a day out of time, I wonder what I would do with it. It would depend, I suppose, on whether other rules still applied – would I still be responsible for my children, would anything that I did on that exist outside that day? If it was like ‘Groundhog Day’ and everything would simply reset as soon as 1st March arrived then oh the fun I would have.
I’d make The Man take a day off work, hire someone to look after the kids, go and blow hundreds on a fancy lunch, massages, a hotel room – remember what made us us before the children came along. I’d buy expensive gadgets and jewellery we couldn’t really afford, run naked through the middle of Christ Church Meadow, get horribly drunk (I’m normally teetotal unless you count the odd sip of fizz for a toast), get on the back of The Man’s motorbike, graffiti rude things about political parties on public buildings and get a tattoo and a piercing. I’d cold call all my ex boyfrends and either apologise or tell them what I thought of them depending on which they deserved. I’d collar interesting people and talk to them like we were old friends and I’d dance dance dance until the night turned into morning and the day faded away into a few memories of a non-existent tattoo and a single day where I’d really truly lived without fear.
What would you do if you had a day out of time?
Lovely post, has got me thinking!