Stupid month of April. Since 2004, April has been a month I’d have gladly dropped off of the calendar year. It’s a thorn in my side. The plague of my existence. The floater in my cold beer. Nothing good ever seems to happen in April. And because of that, I want it removed from the calendar. Can’t I just skip over it? To most, this will come as me just ranting about a month that typically is wetter than most in the Pacific Northwest. I’d imagine that folks will infer that because I so vehemently loathe the rain that this would be my rallying cry for such a monthly removal exercise. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. While I hate the rain, the dreary seasonal effects of the month were merely a small visage on the overall horrific sight of a less than stellar month.

Everything in April seems to be intimately tied together in some sort of wicked network of drama. So where do I start?


Let’s start with work. No defamation of the company here. The concern is the flat-out over abundance of work statement that’s absolutely impossible to complete given the unavailability of resource. Most specifically, time. There’s just not enough time to do everything. Oh yes, but overtime is approved. And then the commute hasn’t helped either. I’ve had meetings, obligations, and appointments in far off reaches of King County forcing me to drive to work rather than commute on the beloved train. So now I’m driving from the middle of nowhere (home) to the middle of somewhere (work) and there’s only one way to get there; on an over congested highway. Awesome. Traffic. Washington drivers. So the whole work life-commute-run errands-attend meetings-finish work-head to an appointment-and commute home again thing has me a little frustrated with April.


Moving on. April sucks for health reasons too. I’d imagine that my frantic schedule hasn’t helped. So I’ve been taking my vitamins, getting more sleep than usual, and even drinking more water than beer. But in an uninteresting reversal of fortune, our entire household came down with the stomach flu. I won’t painstakingly go into colorful vomit-like detail, but I’ll give you the low points of the week. The first of the week, I think I’m ahead of the game, feel some congestion, and go to bed early. No more than an hour later, Son #1 is up looking for comfort as he’s heaving up his Spaghettio dinner on the carpet. Awesome. Time to clean the carpet. Son #1 was resilient; he puked for 24 hours and moved on. Son #2 and my wife faired differently. It involved a few more days of discomfort and output in dual directions. Son #2 puked on the couch. And at the very least, the numerical equivalent in towels furnished in the entire MGM Grand hotel was used. So I was doing laundry. A lot.

I never got pukey, but I can say there was one day that I didn’t think I was going to make it and ate a total of five saltine crackers just to see if I could puke and feel better. No such luck. After a doc appointment, I learned that not only did I have the flu, but the sinus infection from January never went away. But the last item to mention here is really the first thing to happen a week earlier. And that was fainting in the bathroom only to wake up flat on my back on the floor with one hell of a headache. Nothing like a minor concussion in the early weeks of April to set the mood right.


You know I can’t let the weather escape this disgruntled diatribe. So the rain is pissing me off. What’s the deal with having 2x the monthly average for April rainfall in the first two weeks? Now I’ve heard of ‘April showers’ but this volume of rain is ridiculous. It makes horrible drivers even worse. It makes waiting for the train shitty. I can’t ride my bike during the monsoon and even when there’s a break in the storm, local trail networks are rivers. Speaking of under water, the downpour transformed my backyard into the Dagobah swamp. I wouldn’t be surprised to find an X-Wing fighter submerged in the muddy mess. All in all, it’s ruined my all ready piss pour mood. I suppose it doesn’t matter because I’ve been sick anyway.

April can suck it. I remember April 2003 being great. I just got engaged and bought my first home in Long Beach. I was on top of the world in a dead-end job but it didn’t matter. I had great friends, it was sunny, and I could barbeque every day of the year. Now if I go outside this April I’m swimming across the yard to check the mail. I hate swimming.


I’m going to write my congressman and lobby for the removal of the month of April from the calendar. The way I see it, there’s enough days in April to spread across 30 weekends of the year. We could make a three day weekend out of 30 weekends of our choice by adding a day from April to them. Now there are about four weeks in April so instead of having 52 weeks a year, we would now have 48. That gives us 48 weekends that we look for in our tragic existence. We could make 30 of those 48 weekends a little more enjoyable by adding a day to them. What about the other 18? Who cares? I’m willing to overlook 18 two-day weekends for 30 three-day weekends. This alternative is much more interesting and appealing than the month of April.


Those with special days in the soon-to-be-removed month of April will receive a two-for-one day in the remaining months of your choice. Please submit your choices in writing to your congressman or woman.