wHY NOT 109 DAYs?
See, the way we see it, a man who can’t do what he needs to do in 100 days is a mistake already made. So midnight Monday was the moment we were asked to look up from our collective Greenwich Meantime adjusted clocks, squint like Clint Eastwood and ask - “Were ya’ better off 100 days ago? Well were ya’ … punk?”
Like April 15th, there is no option to wriggle here, crying you’re too busy and that next week is a better time. That is too late! No one cares what a president does after his first 109 days. Constitutional respect for decimal rights demands decisions on decimal deadlines.
But wait, why not 109 days?
First - 100 is a nice round number, like 30. Everyone talks about what they want to do “before 30” or what they did “before turning 30” – typically woman “get married” while men “make one million dollars” - My goal? Get me one of those damn high school diplomas everyone talks so much about, and clear up all those pesky DWI "rumours." ¿Why 30? - not because anything much happens at 30 that doesn’t happen at 29 or 31 but because everyone agrees to pick 30 as an empty target that’s easy to remember.
I used to run into all kinds of trouble at job interviews speculating on “where I see myself in seven and four-eighths years and 17 hours.” With newfound spare time after increasingly frequent visits to the UI office I tried similar subterfuge at neighborhood bars, quickly hearing that I was “cut-off.” It was soon made very clear to me that this sort of talk has a nasty habit or re-surfacing “decades” later just when you’re set to run for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Second - 100 days is the measuring stick FDR used to gauge the first progress of his first term, and we all remember where we were when FDR died. But this 100-day neurosis pre-dates FDR. 100 days is apparently the time between the moment Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba to ruin France one last time and the day when he ruined France one last time at Waterloo then finally accepted early retirement. And we all remember where we were the day Napoleon died.
I doubt Napoleon’s second rein worked out to exactly 100 days but that’s what we like to think, just the way we like to think that Humphrey Bogart really said, “play it again Sam.”
I have an idea – let’s not scrap a fine decimal tradition just because it serves no real social or individual purpose. Instead, let’s extend it with a twist. I say continue to judge the new president on a 100-day time frame, but let’s explore his third 100-day period in an effort to project what he’ll accomplish in his seventh 100-day period in office. This, in turn, will undoubtedly help us plan our lives at 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 etc. without wasting time on all the meaningless days in between when we know full well that nothing important ever happens.
If that fails – at risk now of never being able to run for the U.S. Supreme Court - let me propose scrapping the entire decimal thing and instead evaluating our personal chronology in 12 installments like a calendar year. Try it. If you’re healthy, don’t smoke, dropped compelling habits like fast food, chemical substance abuse, and midnight stock car racing, and if you live at least 73.8 miles from any town spelled “Beaumont Texas,” give yourself up to seven or even eight years for each month in a solar year. Tally your sun years completed to date, then slot yourself into the appropriate calendar month.
If it’s still Spring, keep planting. If it’s Summer, find the sunblock. If its already autumn, start raking. If you still have time after completing those chores, count to 100 and ask yourself if you like George Bush Jr.
Yours truly,
Xandor
Copy Boy In-Chief
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