Mad About March? Notsomuch.

Posted On March 13, 2010

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

I’ve never really been a fan of March. (The month, not the musical genre, which usually makes me want to break into a high-step.) Now, before I get members of PACE (People Advocating Calendarial Equality) against me and wake up to find my entire lawn littered with ripped-out calendar pages, let me just say that I never intended to dislike March, it just kind of happened, and I do think I have several compelling reasons.

Reason #1: The Weather

I realize that spring arrives in March, but when you live in Iowa, the beginning of spring isn’t filled with flowers and butterflies. Instead, it usually means that the snow is melting, which leaves dirty, wet, brown lawns. Often we get more snow after the old snow melts, which, although white and a bit less dreary, is really rather depressing after experiencing 4, possibly 5 months of the white stuff.

This also wreaks havoc on my wardrobe decisions. By March I am entirely sick of wearing socks and pretty much resolve not to put another pair on my feet until, say, next October. I’m also done with sweaters, my heavy winter coat, and anything that looks remotely winterish. So I break out the flats and clogs, cuff my jeans, and throw on the jacket. And I usually freeze my arse off. But it’s the principle of the thing, see?

Reason #2: St. Patrick’s Day

I’m not trying to be Negative Nancy, I’m really not. (My apologies to any non-negative Nancies out there I may have offended) But for one, I’m not Irish. Swedish and English, and Husband is Welsh. So I don’t really identify from an ancestor standpoint. For another thing, we didn’t really celebrate the holiday growing up, which became an issue when I didn’t remember it was St. Patrick’s Day until arriving at school. And of course, I had nothing green anywhere on my body. Because I didn’t want to “prove it” that my underwear was green (partly because I was modest, partly because I was lying), I spent the entire school day getting pinched. The menacing fingers would come at me from every direction, and I would never see them coming. Even if I did, I couldn’t fend them off—there were too many of them. So I would go home at 3:15, bruised and sore, vowing NOT to forget March 17 the next year. (But I usually did.)

Now that I’m a mom, I find St. Patrick’s Day not terrifying so much as annoying. Like May Day, it’s one more thing for me to do, one more way for me to fail as a “real mom” with no cute crafts for the kids to make, dyed green food, or even all of the laundry clean so they can at least scrounge up a shirt with a green logo to wear so they don’t have to get pinched all day long. Seriously, it’s hard enough for me to put a halfway decent meal on the table some days, do I really have to make sure it’s all color-coordinated as well?

Reason #3: NCAA Basketball

Really don’t care. Unless the Iowa Hawkeyes are playing, I really couldn’t care less if Xavier or Gonzaga makes it to the Sweet Sixteen. I have no idea where these schools even are. I mean, it’s exciting for the students and fans of the school and all, but honestly, what’s the big deal to the rest of us?

You’re probably thinking, “Well, duh, there’s the NCAA pick ’em pool!” And yes, I’ve participated in the past, but my “research” usually consists of looking at the records on the bracket I’ve been handed, closing my eyes, and pointing to one of the teams. Sometimes I pick the underdog, just to be a rebel. But I really don’t expect to win, and I really don’t care. Most of the time I even forget to check the scores (if I even remember who I picked).

I know, I know, some people are huge basketball fans in general, so this really is exciting to them. I get it. But for the rest of the population who only follow their own team (if any) during the regular season, I don’t get the appeal. Like Husband, for example. He was a wrestler all through high school and college, and if you’re not familiar with wrestlers, they don’t like basketball. At all. Wrestlers make fun of basketball players and say they “play with their balls,” and basketball players make fun of wrestlers and say they “roll around and grope other guys.” It’s really all very mature. So the fact that Husband gets so into the NCAA Basketball Tournament is kind of funny to me. He’ll have several brackets going, online and possibly at work. He’ll watch the games, analyze the scores. Maybe it’s the mathematician in him that loves to analyze the stats and make predictions based on all the different variables. I’ll give him that.

But today I just discovered something even more boring than watching a team I don’t know play in the NCAA Basketball Tournament: watching Husband play NCAA Basketball ’09 on the XBOX. Oh, yes, much more boring. At least when he’s sniping other soldiers in Modern Warfare 2 there’s a little excitement…

So, there you go. Now you know why I’m really not a fan of the month of March. Although I’m sure Husband will take offense to this since his birthday is the first week in March… And as much as I do appreciate that his birthday follows right on the heels of mine so he can call me his “old lady” for only 10 days (11 during a Leap Year), it’s just not enough to outweigh the crappy rest of the month.

Now, I must get some stuff done so I can go to bed an hour earlier since we’re “springing ahead” tonight. Oh, yeah! Losing an hour of sleep to stupid Daylight Savings Time—Reason #4.

What about you? March—thumbs up, or thumbs down?

Photo copyright christiem