Just a thought to ponder on this the most quirky of all calendar dates, an extra day to play with your money before rent is due, another day of enduring winter weather, an extra shopping day before Christmas, and another day that we can't golf.
So what's the deal with this Leap Day anyway?
Well, first of all, blame Earth: Since its rotation around the sun lasts 365 days and six hours, we're forced every four years to add another day to keep us in sync with the Gregorian calendar.
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, no century year is a leap year unless it is exactly divisible by 400 (such as the year 2000). February won the extra day because it was the last month of the year in Roman times. Presidential elections almost always coincide with leap years.
People born on leap days, called "leaplings" or "leapies," get to joke with people that they are just a quarter of their age. And they even get breaks: A Leap Day birthday (with ID) gets you a free one-topping pizza at Papa John's, and Jiminy Peak is letting leaplings pay their age
There are roughly 200,000 people in the United States who celebrate a birthday on Leap Day, according to the Web site www.leapyearday.com. The founders of the site, Peter Brouwer and Raenell Dawn, both leaplings, are lobbying calendar companies to include the "Leap Day" designation in the Feb. 29 box.
"Leap Day is more important than Groundhog Day," their site reads. "If it were not for that extra day, eventually our seasons would not line up with the calendar."
They say the date causes problems with computer programs, and for government-issued IDs, agencies make leaplings select either Feb. 28 or March 1 for their birthday.
Feb. 29 also was the day in 5th century Ireland when a woman was allowed to ask a man to marry her, a tradition instituted by St. Patrick. According to About.com, a law was enacted in Scotland in 1288 that allowed a maiden to ask for a man's hand on Leap Day. If he refused, he would be fined.
Mary Lee Gardener, 52, a genealogist from Pittsfield, said she has read accounts of square dances held on Feb. 29 in 18th century Massachusetts and Connecticut, where unmarried women would bake fruit pies.
"If a man bid on and bought one of the pies," Gardener said, "the woman had the right to ask him to marry her. It was an agrarian type of celebration, and the people were often suffering from cabin fever."
The comic strip "Li'l Abner" is credited with creating Sadie Hawkins Day in the 1930s, when the unmarried women of Dogpatch chased the bachelors. If the men were caught, they were to be married.
Soon after the comic ran, Sadie Hawkins dances — where the girls ask the boys to the dance — became popular in high schools and colleges across the country, and they still exist.
And then there is Pittsfield's own Katherine Mlynarczyk, 25, a classified consultant at The Berkshire Eagle, and Hans Teutsch, 34, an engineer at General Dynamics. The two are getting married today at First United Methodist Church on Fenn Street.
The guys may be thinking: Way to go Teutsch, a wedding anniversary only every four years.
But the gals will like hearing this: "The way I look at it is that we'll celebrate for two days every year (Feb. 28 and March 1), and then every four years will be extra special," Teutsch said.
Teutsch proposed on Feb. 17, 2007, at the Polish Falcons during the middle of karaoke. The song? "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" by The Police. The couple wanted to marry within 12 months, so Teutsch said, "How about Leap Day?"
Mlynarczyk liked the idea.
"We're just fun people, and not many people get married on Leap Day, so it's unique," she said. "And I tell people who I'm talking to about the wedding, 'You may never see me again, but you'll always remember me because I was married on Leap Day.' "
Teutsch wondered: "Do you think we should freeze our wedding cake for four years?"