Two, two, twenty-two

I honestly thought we were done with the cutesy calendar deals for a while.

A few years ago, there was a rash of them every year, like on August 9th of 2010, the calendar read 8/9/10. Or at exactly 10 munites and 11 seconds after 9 a.m. on the 11th day of October back in 2012, for that one second, the date and time read 10:11:12, 13/14/15. Truly we were living in a golden age.

Yeah, that’s pretty cheesy…

But, hey, I did not come up with it. And thanks to the peuliarities of the calendar having 12 months and the months having at most 31 days and clocks only measuring hours out to 12 and minutes and seconds out to 60, there are only so many of these quirky number things that come around.

And I don’t mean the ones that happen every year, like the 10th of March being “Mario Day” because March 10th can be written as MAR10. See how much that looks like the name “Mario,” right. Well, it’s close enough that fans of Nintendo’s favorite mushroom-eating plumber will be celebrating… and if that sentence made absolutely no sense, there’s really no way to explain it to you.

Also in March is “Pi Day.” And if you already figured out that it falls on Marth 14th (as in 3.14 or the first three digits of pi in geometry), the congratulations on paying attention in math class.

And of course, my favorite of the “made up days” (I guess technically they’re all made up days) is the Fourth

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of July, but it’s pretty important to those of us who remember “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

That’s right, fellow nerds! The fourth day of May is “Star Wars Day” — sorry non-nerds.

Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, “May the 4th” sounds like “May the Force,” as in the famous line from the Star Wars universe, “May the Force be with you.” It’s double cool that the original Star Wars film was released in May as well. Anyway, even now, more than 40 years after its debut in 1977, the Star Wars franchise continues to thrive. Between 1977 and 1983, we got the original three movies. There were comic books, novels and even a Christmas Special (that we dare not speak of) but largely, that was it.

For nearly two decades that’s all the Star Wars we got. But then in May (not the 4th) of 1999, we got the first of three prequel movies. And Star Wars basically exploded from there, with an animated movie, three animated series, more comic books, novels, video games and more.

It hasn’t stopped. In more recent times, Disney bought the rights to Star Wars and produced five more films and are now rolling out TV shows that would have blown the mind of 10-year-old me (and honestly blow the mind of 48-year-old me).

No “Star Wars Day” isn’t a real holiday (yet?) but I assure you, millions of fans will be celebrating one way or another, with movie marathons or dragging their old toys out of the closet or maybe just putting on a Darth Vader T-shirt.

But enough about all that.

Today is a very special day… or should I say, “2-Day is a very special day,” because, as you might have already figured out, there are a whole bunch of twos in the date. It’s the 22nd day of February (the second month) and we are lilving in the 2,022nd year of our Lord. In other words, it’s 2/22/22. And yes, at exactly 22 minutes and 22 seconds past 2 p.m., it will be 2:22:22 on 2/2/22 (techincally, this will also be true at 2:22 a.m., but everyone will be asleep then).

And… get this… it’s on a Tuesday! How awesome is that?

So, how does one celebrate such a momentous occasion? Does anyone remember back on November 11th, 2011 how we celebrated it being 11:11:11 on 11/11/11? What about on the 12th of December ten years ago when it was 12:12:12 on 12/12/12?

No, me either.

Maybe we’ll come up with something really cool in 11 years when we get to 3:33:33 on 3/33/33… oh wait, that’s not a real date.

Perhaps we could add a couple of days to March that year?

Oh well, I’m still looking forward to Pi Day because I usually get invited to a math class to partake in some delicious pies. In the meantime, whatever you’ve got planned for today, do it twice as much to celebrate.

Take two hours for lunch!

Have two donuts for breakfast! Sing twice as loud in the shower!

After all, this sort of thing only happens once a century!