So I went to the dollar store a couple weeks ago to pick up some of the endless streams of stuff you find yourself picking up when your kids are in school. “Could each student bring in fifty pencils? And four boxes of Kleenex? And fifteen pads of paper? And…?”
The mission this week being stuff like plastic tablecloths and clothespins, I hit up the dollar store. Your source of probably fatally-flawed but extremely cheap clothespins that, while they couldn’t possibly hold up a single cotton t-shirt on a clothesline, will do just fine for whatever craft project your first grade teacher has in mind. Plus you get 200 of them for a dollar. Rock on!
As I was standing in line, the cashier wondered aloud when Easter was this year.
Nobody in line knew. So I took out my Treo and looked at the calendar…which does not actually have the traditional holidays downloaded into it because, well, I haven’t gotten around to that yet.
But I’ve got all the solstices, moon phases and random holy days from religions nobody ever heard of in there. If it doesn’t get you a day off work, it’s probably in my calendar…but tell me that Good Friday is this Friday, and I’ll be stunned by the revelation. (Seriously. I was. Even though I already knew Easter was April 4, the fact that April 2 was Good Friday was like, “dude…wait…whaaaaaaaaaaat?”) (Also, I’m having surgery on April Fool’s Day. O.M.G. That dude had better not be a joker, I swear to Dog I will cut him…)
I can’t explain that. Really. I can’t. Except that weird random holy days interest me, and mainstream ones, the ones I grew up with and looked forward to every year because they involved candy-candy-candy (sweet tooth: I haz it) (hmm…also, I have rotten teeth. Coincidence? I THINK NOT), kind of don’t.
“Well,” I said, squinting at that blasted screen that was obviously designed for people with hawk-like vision. “Let’s see. Spring equinox is on the 20th, ohmygosh that’s this weekend. OK, and the next full moon is on the 29th. So, that would put Easter on…April 4.”
And then I looked up to see everybody in line staring at me like they weren’t sure just how crazy I was.
“Whaaaaaat?” the cashier asked.
“Because, uh, Easter is one of those movable feast day thingees? Yeah, heh heh…it’s, uh, see, it’s always on the first Sunday (ahem) after the first full moon (called the ‘worm moon’, by the way, isn’t that kinda funny, hahahaha…ha…heh…ahem) after Ostara? I mean the Vernal Equinox? You know, first day of spring?”
“That’s…kind of…crazy…” she muttered, still looking at me like maybe I was dangerous.
{beep…beep…beep} went a few pads of paper and bags of clothespins.
“How on earth do you even know that?” she blurted out.
“It is my life’s work to collect as many valuable bits of worthless information as I possibly can,” I told her solemnly.
“Oh. OK. Well. You have a nice day, then.”
Yeah.
And then I wonder why people are always looking at me like that…
Recipe Tuesday - Mung Bean Curry
3 weeks ago
4 comments:
OMG I just died of teh funniez. That sort of stuff is *always* happening to me, too. Random knowledge (often associated with my job) will spew out at non-job times when some innnocent friend or family member says something like, "huh - that house has a lot of gables." And then I'm off, and everyone is speechless (with boredom, not with intrigue or wonderment). And I'm not even an architect, I just run the office. That stuff just rubs off on me.
I've known how to calculate the date of Easter for a long time, but I never have the date of the full moon - so I never actually use the knowledge.
By the way, the equinox for the calculation is actually set to the 21st of March, and the 'full moon' is apparently not always astronomically accurate either... (I don't mean to correct you - just a tidbit for your collection.)
Oh you bad girl - how funny!
I always admire the collection of worthless information. I would have been looking with awe. :)
But then, my mother and I are the same way!
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