LIGHTSIDE

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Feeling a touch delicate, just a bit under the weather? Could it be flu, simply a cold or, well, hair of the dog? No matter, it will pass. Then you may well decide to try and figure out how it is a year goes by so quickly.

It seems a full year should take forever to unfold, to shake the months off the sheet and reel out the days like a good fishing line. But the opposite is true. A year barely lasts as long as a good pair of shoes. Even walking as slowly as I do.

For example, Christmas just past is almost forgotten. Most are already thinking of spring and the Easter rabbit. These exercises probably help reduce the sleepless nights worrying about the escalating sum owing on your credit card.

Even the memories of a turkey meal and who drank the best wine is gone. We are caught up in the increasingly mad rush of trying to cope, to separate fact from fiction and filling in the blank spots on our day planners.

Let's face it, we are time addicts.

Few of us prefer to wander the days taking incidents and events as they come. We say we do, but the opposite is true. Appointments must be kept, the parking meter paid and no slacking. Definitely no tardy behaviour when it comes to job and obligation.

So the days of the calendar fly by. Each snowballs into the next and so on. A week melts faster than a Slushie and most of us are already planning summer holidays.

Where is the time going?

This all points to the fact many of us think a year is too short. We must calm the pace and extend the year for at least another one hundred days. Heck, let's round it off to 500 days in a year.

That would create much more time free of commitment. Birthdays would take longer to arrive allowing those who fib about his or her age time to adjust. No more mad dashes to buy presents.

We would have more time for vacation, to spend bonuses and laze. Summer would last longer. So would school. Can't you imagine the pleasure our students would find in another 60 days of school per year?

The only group not be affected by a year's length is those who hand out parking tickets. Their only change would more pens to fill out the increased numbers of violation notices they so happily write.

Professionals such as dentists, lawyers and such would be able to see more people on time, not have them wait as usual.

Of course the idea of extending a year will never fly. The association of calendar printers are opposed to it. They threaten to impale February, make it 60 days long.

Parliamentarians are also opposed. They like their present schedule and year length. However, their wrath pales when compared with credit card companies.

Whatever its length, a year will still remain a given period into which I cram too much. The days will continue fly by in a flash. I will miss appointments and schedules.

A good point is that the keeper says if I behave they will let me out of this room to wander the corridors. They just have to find the time.

Isn't life sweet?