Navigation
Contribute
Sister projects
From WinkyPedia, the free encyclopedia that tells you what you already knew
Leap day is 29 February, a spare day kept in storage and added to February every four years, ideally when February isn’t looking. It exists because the Earth takes about 365¼ days to go round the Sun, and the quarter-days have to be saved up somewhere until there are enough to make a whole one.[1]
The quarter-days are kept in a filing cabinet at the Bureau of Weekdays, in a drawer labelled “misc.”, and are let out in one piece every four years, slightly creased.
People born on leap day have a birthday only once every four years, and are therefore legally about a quarter of their age. In 1932 the Department of Birthdays tried to close this loophole by sending them a card on 28 February reading “nearly” and another on 1 March reading “just missed it”.[2]
Leap day lands on a different day of the week each time. It has been a Monday five times since 1900, each time an extra Monday that nobody was expecting and that did not count towards anything.
Scholars disagree about whether leap day is part of February or merely staying there. The Lodgers’ School points out that it has its own key, comes and goes as it pleases, and has never once contributed to the electricity bill.[3]