Saturday, Feb 23, 2002

Saturday, Feb. 23, 2002 – A good Date

Once I entered a contest that asked me to put down on paper what happened on a certain date. That was fine, the date wasn’t before my time or I would have turned in a perfectly blank page. It wasn’t in the future either, or I would have been deceased and the same blank piece of paper would have been cranked out of the printer.

It was a nice, round date too, 2.23.2002. OK, so it was almost round, just slightly unbalanced, which was fine because I’m pretty unbalanced myself at times.

There was a problem though. Not a significant problem of course because writers are used to solving problems...except in the case of writers’ block for which there is absolutely no perfect solution.

At the end of each day I jot down notes about what I’ve done during the day on wall calendar, and I keep the calendars for 10 years. I flipped back seven calendars – its one of those big jobbers with lots of room for notes -- and found 2002, then February. I ran my finger down the weeks, got to the fourth one which started on the 17th then moved over to Friday, then Sunday. Woah, Saturday was missing!

Yeah, MISSING. Gone. Vanished. Disappeared. Evaporated!

The dang calendar went from Friday directly to Sunday.

Now, this wasn’t a leap year of course. Besides, if it had been the 29th would be there, and there was no Feb. 29th either. A mystery.

How was I going to write about a date that didn’t exist?

Now if the contest was “write about what happened on the Third Saturday of Feb. 2002”, I would be fine, for my notes for that day were still there.

The notes on the 22nd and the 24th didn’t help me either. Friday’s note was “Going to get Blasted at Duffy’s Tonight”. OK, that wasn’t exactly an AFTER note, but you get the idea. Sunday’s note didn’t help either; all it said was “Had a picnic at ARP with Cheryl”.

I poured a cup of java and leaned against the fridge, looked at the calendar and tried to figure out what to do. “Got it!” I said to no one; “I’ll write about Saturday, the 16th and just SAY it was the 23rd. Who the heck will know?”

That should do it.

I put the coffee cup down, walked to the computer (Which was on; its always on) and sat down. I looked up at the calendar to see what had happened on the 16th.

Ut oh, problem.... Saturday the 16th was now missing!

Crappy contest, I thought, If I keep this up I’ll lose the entire month...I think I’ll just go play Bingo on Yahoo and forget the contest.

And that's why I didn't enter the contest.