Do the Math!

In this classic cartoon, Umbert points out that we are all nine months older than we give ourselves credit for, that is, if we truly believe that life begins at conception. Thus, when we celebrate our birthday we are actually celebrating the anniversary of our date of birth, not our actual age. But we even get that wrong. When a person celebrates his twenty-first birthday, for instance, he is really celebrating his twenty-second, ignoring the fact that the day he was born was actually his first birthday. Of course, he IS celebrating the 21st anniversary of his day of birth, but this has no bearing on his age because he is actually twenty-one years and nine months old. And so, truth be told, we ALL lie about our age, by at least nine months. Does any of this matter? Not really, we're going to continue to do the fuzzy math and forget that we existed in our mother's bellies for a good long stretch. It seems to be human nature to get it wrong when it comes to measuring time, like the turn of the millennium fiasco. People went nuts celebrating the twenty-first century as midnight approached on December 31, 1999, completely oblivious to the fact that the new millennium was still a whole year away and didn't begin until January 1, 2001. Are we all on the same page now? Great! Happy Birthday, Happy Conception Day and Happy Anniversary, whichever may apply.