Hello August 28! Long time no see . . .

Something dawned on me recently. The fact is, I haven't experienced August 28 for a very long time.

"Guffaw," you say (I can't remember what that sound means exactly but it sounds good for this situation). "A whole year is not that terribly long you cake head!" (Perhaps you haven't heard that "cake head" expression before. That's because I just made it up and it hasn't had time to become a cliche yet. It's a softer rendition of "fat head" since everyone knows how fattening cakes can be.)

Actually I agree with you. A year is not long enough to start missing August 28 by any means, unless that happened to be my birthday. But how about two years?

Yes, ladies and gents, I have not experienced August 28 for two whole years! Okay, well MAYBE I experienced about an hour or two of it in the wee wee hours of the morning, but the fact remains that about this time last year all was nearly normal. I was going along at about one o'clock in the morning on August the 28th, minding my own business . . . la la la la la la la la---when BAM!!!!! It was suddenly one o'clock a.m. August 29. Don't ask me how I did it, time travel isn't a secret I'm about to divulge.

Still, there's something undeniably uncanny about the idea of having a whole day wiped out of the history of your life. Why, for me August 28, 2006, never even existed! While everyone else has something written down in the record of their life for that date (like this: August 28, 2006. Susie spent three hours drooling, one hour laughing, and the rest of the 20 either eating, sleeping, or being incredibly naughty), my life for that page is practically nothing! In fact, my page would probably look something like this: August 28, 2006. Kayla is moving amazingly fast, propelled by extraordinary powers (maybe a UFO?). She is drowsy. No, wait! She's gone! She's missing in action! The rest of her page is blank! She's----page turn. August 29, 2006. Kayla is sleeping . . .

The top side to crossing the International Dateline is that if you come back you make it all up by getting a day twice. Woe to those who cross it toward the Orient, never to return! They will forever be missing a day that they could have enjoyed with everybody else. On the other hand, if you traveled west you could cross the International Dateline going the other way and experience the day twice! Then if you had super time travel you could cross the International Dateline coming from the other way again and again--every day even. In fact, perhaps if you got it to pan out just right you could live every day of the year twice, which would mean your birthday would come only about once every two years and therefore you could remain young for years and years! Or would you just be experiencing the same day over and over? I'm confused . . . . but anyway, yikes I'm practically a genius--I should patent my idea. All you need is super duper traveling speed to go all around the world in an hour or so, then you can cross the International Dateline and spend most of your day in Hawaii. You'd stay young for a very long time . . . though I suppose if everyone did that then the national average age for deaths in the U.S. would probably drop from 76 to 38, and those statistics might throw a bad light on the healthy environment of our country, not to mention how old a 38-year-old would end up looking. I guess I'm not a genius after all (rats, scratch that idea). For the good of the country we should just let ourselves grow old.

However after all that I'm still happy to see August 28 again, and now I shall greet it, "Hello August 28! Long time no see . . . "

p.s. don't mind all the flaws to my far-fetched "staying young" scheme. If you don't understand it then I'm gratified because I'm still confused about it myself, though I keep "almost getting it." But hey, it sounded good, and I bet it made you think, right?