2546. Bad Luck Year

Owen had this thing about calendars. It would bring bad luck to hang a calendar on a wall before New Year’s Day. It was equally bad luck to turn a month over before midnight. The prior-to-New-Year would bring bad luck all year; the prior-to-the-first-of-the-month would bring bad luck all month.

Leila, the wife of Owen, had no such hang-ups. She was super-organized. Sometimes she might even turn the calendar over on the 28^th or 29^th even if it wasn’t February. It became a full-time job for Owen to keep watch.

This was more than a game; it was an epic challenge. Owen was serious about it; Leila though it was nonsense. If Owen hadn’t shown such passion for something so ridiculous then she would never bothered even to look at a calendar. Her stubbornness had grown however, and now she would secretly creep out of bed around 30 minutes to midnight and turn the calendar month over. She would hardly have dozed off before Owen was out of bed and returning the calendar month back to its rightful last 25 minutes.

Of course in the morning they were both tired and grumpy, which Owen attributed to bad luck and Leila attributed to stupidity.

New Year was coming up and Owen conceived an idea. Each year they would order a tailor-made calendar with pictures they had selected themselves. For example, January had a photograph of the long-deceased pet hamster Leila had as a child. Owen secretly had an extra calendar made with twelve Decembers and twelve identical photos. He secretly hung it on the wall before retiring.

Around 11.30 there was a quiet commotion going on. Owen had stayed awake. Leila had crept out of bed. Leila returned and said to Owen, “I suppose you think that’s funny.” Owen sniggered. He had won!

The next morning, to his dismay, there hung January with the hamster photograph. In fact every month of the year was January with the hamster photograph. It was going to be a bad-luck year.

1685. A wonderful Christmas gift

You’ve no idea the trouble Ivy went to, to get twelve lovely photographs of the wonderful family who lived next door. There were five in the Winchcombe Family: Mum, Dad, and their three beautiful daughters. The Winchcombes were about as ideal next door neighbours as one could hope for. And every Christmas they would bring Ivy a basket of the tastiest homemade shortbread possible. Glorious!

The trouble was that Ivy always had trouble knowing what best to give them in return. She’d done chocolates at least five times. And then she got this idea. Wonderful!

She would get a calendar printed with a different family photograph each month of the year. Ivy started early gathering the photographs together. It was a difficult task because she didn’t want to let her secret out. The photos were perfect. There was a beautiful one of the family gathering mushrooms in a green field. Another shot was of the family at a fair ground. The loveliest photograph of all was an official portrait taken of the family sitting on a rug in front of a lake. With swans. And trees. And flowers. And… oh lovely! Just lovely!

Ivy was so pleased with the calendar when it was finished that she couldn’t wait to give it to the family. But she must be patient. She mustn’t jump the gun. Only a week to go!

And then the three girls called in with a basket of Christmas shortbread and said that their parents were getting a divorce.

1170. An update to the calendar

Renaldo came up with an excellent proposal: if each month had thirty days then that would leave five days unallocated. That would mean a five day holiday for the whole world! Unless it was a leap year, then there would be a six day holiday.

First he wrote to the pope, since his predecessors had invented the Gregorian calendar that replaced the Julian calendar of Julius Caesar. The pope wrote back and said he thought the business of reorganizing the calendar was possibly no longer the prerogative of the papacy, although he’d be happy to see the pagan names of the months changed. Perhaps the United Nations might be able to deal with the matter more effectively.

The United Nations wrote to Renaldo and said that in all its history the United Nations had achieved very little, and they doubted whether anyone would take any notice of them. Why not write to the President of the United States?

The President of the United States said there was enough trouble trying to rewrite the nation’s history without worrying about what month it was. Try the Chinese President.

The Chinese President suggested that the whole world change to the Chinese system and since it was the year of the rat it seemed entirely appropriate. If Renaldo didn’t like it he could write to the President of Russia.

The Russian President answered and said that the Russian Orthodox Church already followed an earlier calendar and it was unnecessary to change anything to get in line with the rest of the world. It was really up to each government to decide what was best for them, and of course Russia wouldn’t interfere with any foreign decision-making.

So Renaldo wrote to every foreign leader in the world. Each one replied the same: those who worked for the government were thrilled with the suggestion and were taking the extra five days off each year anyway. But as for changing the numbers of days in a month; that was a bit too complicated.

And then the world came up with a wonderful compromise: the calendar would be scrapped altogether. There were no days, no weeks, no months, no years. At long last, no one was offended.