Beware, Beware- the Ides of... February.

This one’ll be short, sweet, and practical!  When people talk about February, they inevitably talk about Valentine’s Day and maybe the comes-around-every-four-years Leap Day, but few people recognize that it’s the ‘normal’ February that’s the doozy.  Why?  Because… 30 days has September, April, June, and November… yada yada except February, which has TWENTY EIGHT (or in leap years, 29).  What’s the big deal about 28?  There are 7 days in a week.  And as I learned with those endless times tables, 4 x 7 = 28, meaning that February is exactly four weeks long.  So far, not rocket science.  You trick is that this combination means that March has the EXACT same setup of days/dates.  Following me yet?   

Check out the following calendar for February 2010:

And a calendar of the first 28 days of March 2010:

Look familiar?  

Moral of the story- if you’re booking plane tickets in January for a March trip and know that you want to fly on Friday the 4^th, make sure that you book your tickets for March 4^th and not February 4^th because there’s a Friday the 4^th in both months.  Trust me, it’s easy to make the mistake :)