Not to sound negative, but February is the worst month. It’s not spelt right, it doesn’t have the correct number of days, and by this time everyone is sick of all the once-majestic snow. Thankfully the month is filled with the following inspired holidays:

Groundhog’s Day (February 2nd)
If a groundhog sees its shadow, we’ll have six more weeks of winter—or so claims this embarrassing day. The groundhog is allegedly afraid of its shadow, yet ambivalent to the noisy gathering of citizens and local action news crews. The attention is a little excessive, though, because whether the groundhog sees its shadow or not, we’ve still got about six more weeks until we celebrate a decent holiday.

Ash Wednesday (varying Wednesdays in February and March)
This is the first day of Lent, which is when people become more pious by fasting or making an act penance or giving up Little Debbie Snack Cakes. It’s all Greek to me, although one time I did go to the gym every other day during Lent to participate in the celebrations. What that had to do with Jesus I have no idea, but I did end up with superior abs.

Valentine’s Day (February 14th)
Single people loathe this holiday, calling it a deviant manifestation of Hallmark materialism and masochistic guilt-giving that spawns nothing but envy, loneliness, and sometimes even depression. Or at least that’s what I called it in my 1998 diary.

President’s Day (third Monday of February)
This day is actually a joint celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday, kind of like how my little sister’s birthday is one day before mine and sometimes I used to have to eat her leftover cake for my birthday. Another interesting fact about President’s Day is that this day is no more or less remarkable than any other day in February.

For some reason, my election recap was recently linked on collegehumor.com, buried in a November 9th list labeled “Hot Links! Hot Links!” between–I swear I’m not making this up–a site hocking beer pong t-shirts and a link simply called “crazy girl on girl catfight.” Somehow, my link managed to be the least highbrow of the three. I’m not even sure why it was linked on College Humor, as I have graduated from college and haven’t been humorous since the seventh grade, when my math teacher made an error on the chalkboard and said, “Boy, I sure feel stupid,” to which I quipped, “You look it, sir,” which I have regretted to this day.

After the recap was posted on College Humor, it was then passed around like a joint at a Ja Rule album release party, accumulating over 20,000 unique hits in a two-day span. While this might not seem like much for fancier websites that offer “content” and “reasons for visiting,” it’s an unprecedented sum for eKarjala. Most surprising is that the recap in question is simply an uncouth stream of invective, the joke being that I use nothing more than derivates of the word “fuck” to express my view on the Presidential Election. As can be expected, response to the recap was pretty divisive. For example, political maven FlutyMagic@aol.com wrote:

You’re pretty trashy.  Thats about all I can say to you!  You’re trash!

If you’ve never been at the receiving end of one of FlutyMagic’s cunning affronts, let me just say that they can be pretty brutal. Notice how the only thing FlutyMagic deigns to tell me is that I’m nothing but trash—common, everyday garbage, to be picked up on Tuesday morning in some nondescript Hefty bag. His peremptory exclamation points carry a poignant, debilitating weight that leave me dizzy, while his merciless observation that I am both trash and trashy is a terrifying redundancy I wish I could erase from my woebegone memory. Not since LittlePrincessPony wrote me have I been picked apart so ruthlessly.

Colleges are always appalled when students riot or get into huge fights after a major sporting victory, but this is kind of a mixed message when you consider that during games students are coerced into chanting so-called “fight songs.” These are spirited songs that sound exactly alike from college to college, and they’re job is to provoke fans into a state of high emotion necessary for properly rooting for their team and then rioting for their team after the game. God bless my alma mater, but the Michigan State fight song is a little ridiculous. Included in this lyrical masterpiece are the following lines:

On the banks of the Red Cedar/There’s a school that’s known to all
It’s specialty is winning/And those Spartans play good ball
I kind of wish Michigan State’s specialty was providing a quality education, but no. Our specialty is winning sporting events. That’s fantastic. This should go over well at my next job interview.

Spartan teams are never beaten/All through the game they’ll fight
Fight for the only colors: Green and White
Right. Spartan teams are never beaten. OK, but if we’re never beaten, how do you explain the fact that our football team is 4-5 right now? To me that means we’ve been beaten five times this year. But perhaps the song is merely suggesting that our team is never mentally beaten, that at heart we’re always winners, like when our quarterback got suspended for cocaine addiction two years ago.

Rah! Rah! Rah! See their team is weakening/We’re going to win this game
Fight! Fight! Rah! Team, Fight!/Victory for MSU
Rah! Rah! Fight! Rah! Fight! Rah! Rah! Fight! Fight! Fight! Kill! Kill! Start fires! Somehow MSU expects people to sing this song but also refrain from fighting or rioting after the game. This is kind of like making somebody sing a drinking song and then telling them to stay completely sober. I just flipped over my chair and set it on fire, and I didn’t even sing the song out loud.