Janbruary

Every year I dread late January and all of February. Foremost, the weather is awful and has been especially cold in New Jersey over the last couple of weeks. Beyond that, this time of year is absolutely dead in terms of sports. Unless you are among the millions of Steelers fans or one of the seven Cardinals fans, there is very little to get excited about right now. NBA basketball, if you even follow it, doesn’t really kick into gear for another month, NCAA hoops hasn’t quite wrapped up its preseason before the madness that is March, hockey – never mind everyone hates hockey, women’s basketball, and baseball is still months away from meaning anything. Beyond that, I can’t even go out and play the sports I am good at: bocce ball, swimming pool basketball, or betting on horse races. Come to think of it, why do we even have this terrible section of the calendar?

Maybe it’s time to consolidate. That is what all of the economists are telling us to do right? Cut back. Save. Combine services. It’s time to do that with January and February. Would anyone even notice except to revel in the time that is Janbruary? Consider the implications of this new month. Get ready for it. We could kick it off with New Years, roll right into MLK weekend, and get a bunch of TV premieres to fill our nights. Just when we are getting back to work we chuck in Valentine’s Day to appease the lady folk (not mine, we don’t celebrate), roll through a weekend of playoff football, and then into the Super Bowl, which happens to combine with President’s weekend so now we have the Monday after the big game off and then bam! it’s March, the NCAA tournament is starting and St. Patty’s Day is just around the corner. Gasp. Who wouldn’t love this new month?

I was trying to think of examples of two (or more) crappy, terrible or useless things that when combined turn into an awesome pairing. It was harder than I thought so I enlisted my buddy James to help. Here is what we came up with:

- Horseshoes and stakes
- Slinkies and stairs
- Cheech and Chong
- Bricks to the face and the guy from the Sprint commercials who walks around in cities in his overcoat talking about how amazed he is at his company’s phones
- All of the people ever to appear on The Real World

I can’t find any fault in this month-merging plan at all and I encourage you to come up with any downside. Also if you can think of combinations of stupid things that make a great thing let me know. Until then, let’s make Janbruary happen.