Golden Birthdays

This was the train of thought I experienced while driving to work this morning:

I work with a girl who is 20 years old, and her birthday is August 20. This means that this past birthday was her “golden” birthday (when the age you’re turning matches the date you were born).

I have the latest possible golden birthday: the 31^st.

But that’s fine. It doesn’t really matter much to me.

But then I thought about people born on February 29^th, and I thought that would be a really cool golden birthday if it happened to actually land on February 29^th (as opposed to having to celebrate it on, say, February 28^th  or March 1^st), because that would be a meaningful golden birthday.

Then I thought, “In fact, that’d be so rare and historic that it would probably be on the news” (or, at the very least, on Yahoo! News, which features articles about everything). I mean, they always talk about when some kid turns 12 years old at 12:12pm on 12/12/2012, and stuff like that. Why not mention someone turning 29 years old on February 29^th?

For a moment I thought that maybe it’s just never ever happened before. In that case, the first time would be historic.

And then…

And then, suddenly, I realized the sad, cold truth: It isn’t possible to turn 29 years old on February 29^th.

Since February 29^th only happens every four years, if you have that birthday, your “birthday” will only occur on years when your age is divisible by four. So your birthday will fall on the day you turn 28 years old, but then not again until you’re 32.

You poor, poor people born on February 29^th. You’ll never have a golden birthday. My deepest condolences. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.