February is a painfully long month

Let’s face it, there’s something painful about February.

How come the shortest month seems the longest?

Whenever I think about the month, my mind goes back to grade school.

It was in February that the calendar seemed to slow down. And that clock in the classroom — the one up there by the public address system speaker — almost ground to a halt. 

It always moved more slowly when we were awaiting the bell for recess. But in February it was as if molasses had been poured into the clockworks.

Then again, in some classrooms the clock actually stopped, an event that seems to have been in violation of the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment for third graders. My guess is that happened in February.

Still rolling on the momentum from Christmas and maybe a couple of snow days, most grade school kids had no trouble with January.

But then the calendar page was turned, and with that turn came some pretty lame holidays.

Washington’s birthday. Lincoln’s birthday. They came in quick succession, but there wasn’t a doggoned thing about them that was festive.

How do you celebrate Washington’s birthday in grade school? Take a quiz on old George while looking up at the portrait in your classroom and noticing the resemblance to your second grade teacher.

How do you celebrate Lincoln’s birthday in grade school? You do something with a penny. 

Every kid could find a profile of our 16th president in a pocket or a purse or on his parents’ dresser. Make an art project out of it.

Did we learn anything about Abraham Lincoln or George Washington? Not really.

The change in routine may have made life easier for the teachers, who, like the kids, were sick of February, but it was just an attempt at distraction. And a futile one at that.

The calendar still crept along slowly. The clock still seemed to be stopped.

At the middle of the month, Valentine’s Day appeared, an event that was both awkward and confusing to the 11-and-younger set.

The problem with Valentine’s Day in grade school was that it was simultaneously general and specific.

What do I mean? Let me try to explain.

Say you were a round-headed kid in third or fourth or fifth grade. You might just be beginning to have the first crush of your life. 

You know nothing; you are a kid. But there’s somebody in your class who makes you feel different, and you have this weird hope that you make them feel different as well.

So February brings Valentine’s Day, with all its mushy, gushy, over the top expressions of devotion and love and all that icky stuff. That’s the specific part.

But Valentine’s Day also brings “the rules.” And the rules require that every kid gives a Valentine to every other kid in the class. 

That’s the general part.

You’re a kid — absolutely sick of February by this point and you don’t care at all about two of our greatest presidents — and all you want to do is get this unprecedented feeling of affection for that classmate three rows over out of your system, but then you’re told that one size fits all.

Your Valentine sentiment gets homogenized.

Every classmate gets a Valentine. Your hand-decorated cigar box gets a Valentine from everyone in the room. And none of it means anything. 

No wonder February seems like such a long month.