Leaplings! Every four years they appear on February 29 but why? Is it true they crawl out of the Marianas trench looking for children’s tears, like the legendary “Leap Day William?”
Well no, of course not. Why would anyone trade delicious candy for tears? Ridiculous. Leap Day William is just a silly sitcom creation. The truth about Leaplings and Leap Day has nothing to do with candy and everything to do with controlling time.
Recall: Leap Day, February 29 is that mysterious extra day we have every four years, in years that are exactly divisible by four.
We need them because while a calendar year is 365 days, the earth actually takes 365 days plus five hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds longer than that to go around the sun. So roughly every four years, an extra day is needed to re-synch the calendar, or the seasons would start to drift.
Without Leap Day, we’d have Halloween at Christmas and Windshield Wiper Awareness Week in July. And that’s just crazy. Everybody knows that Windshield Wiper Awareness week is the first week of February.
So what about the babies who are lucky enough to be born on a Leap Day? Those so-called “Leaplings?” Can they really jump backwards or forwards in time? Is it true they can give you back one day of your life, if you catch one on February 29? And can they really jump that high?
Well I finally caught up with Her Royal Leapiness, Leapling Raenell Dawn, the Leap Day Lady, to confirm or deny these allegations and our interview was very revealing. Although it didn’t answer all of my questions:
SG: Is it true you Leaplings can jump through time (but not space) 4 years at a time?
RD: That’s a good question. Some Leaplings don’t like teleporting through time, but I think it’s great fun! Especially in cyberspace! But oh – we never jump. No, no, no. We LEAP. We Leap, therefore we are.
SG: Is it true that Leaplings can jump, er, sorry *LEAP* really high?
RD: Funny you should ask that. There is one Leap Day baby able to Leap tall buildings… It’s a bird! It’s a plane! … It’s a Leap Day baby???? yep. “They” say Superman was a Leaper! (in more ways than one!) Here’s a link to that info on our site: leapyearday.com/content/super-heroes.
SG: Is it true that Leaplings and Leprechauns hate each other?
RD: What? Who wouldn’t like a Leap Day baby? We rival no one! We simply Leap. Speaking of which…I really must be leaping on. It’s my 13th Birthday!
And that was the end of our interview. I didn’t get to ask Her Royal Leapiness about the whole time gift thing. I guess it’s okay because I still haven’t picked the 24 hours I want to live again. But I’m working on that right now. Just in case I do see another Leaper today. I want to be ready.
Seth