Guest in reality

When I was growing up, my dad used to refer to me as a “guest in reality,” due to my sometimes astonishing feats of distraction. For instance, we would visit my grandparents, who live in a city about an hour away, every few months for my entire life. And then, when I turned 18 and was given the opportunity to drive to the visits, I had no idea how to get there. None. It just hadn’t been important to pay attention to the road.

And today, February 29, is the manifestation of perhaps the most egregious example of my absent-minded-professoritis: It’s my engagement anniversary. Yup, me and the wife got engaged on Saturday, February 29th, 1992.

My cunning plan was that we would get engaged on the last day of February, since that was around the time when we had our first date, and would be easy to remember.

Brilliant.

So the day after we got engaged, I called my parents to share the happy news and my dad goes, “Congratulations! That’s great! But, uh, you got engaged on February 29th?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“This is a leap year.”

“Uh, right.”

“February 29th only comes every four years.”

“Aw, hell.”

My only defense is that my wife didn’t think of it either, so I guess we deserve each other.

Oh, and happy anniversary, honey! We’ll do it again in four years.