Six Good Reasons March Sucks So Bad
“If I live through March, I’ll live another year,” my great-aunt used to say about these most wretched thirty-one days on the calendar. She died in March because, surprise, MARCH SUCKS. Here are five good reasons March sucks so bad.
The Weather
March is the puberty of seasons. The new year is transitioning from a crystalline world of white snowy landscapes, with all the promise of a blank page, into an explosion of green and flowers. But first the developing year needs to make it through March! Snow and ice devolve into streets pustulating with salty, grey slush. Sidewalks blossom with clods of January’s Burger King wrappers and discarded Faygo bottles. Roads are as pocked and cratered as your fifteen-year-old face. Perhaps this is a necessary part of transformation, but like puberty, it sure as shit sucks.
The Holidays
I’m sorry, what holiday was it you’re looking forward to? St Patrick’s Day? The day an entire culture stretching back millennia, from neolithic people who were building wonders centuries before the Egyptians, to warrior kings, saints & scholars, invasions, oppression, rebellion, renaissance, and the literary triumph that is Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer is boiled down to painting your face green and puking?
If you’re not Irish, you’re looking forward to honoring a culture that’s not your own in the most racist possible way? If you ARE Irish, you’re looking forward to watching drunken dude-bros mock your ancestors?
Okay, whatever.
It’s NOT National Poetry Month
March is an entire month between you and April, which is National Poetry Month. That’s a whole month without pushing Zachary Schomburg on your friends like he’s a taste of meth, or trying to convince people that Jeffrey McDaniel’s Uncle Eggplant does too make sense, or trying not to scream with ecstasy after finishing something by Ross Gay! Sure, you can do all those things any time of year, but you can also murder a pine tree and stick it in your living room in May, but it’s still not Christmas.
Give me National Poetry Month now! I want a pantoum in every pocket,and a limerick on every lip!
March Apologists
Whenever I point out the natural law that MARCH SUCKS there is always a cadre of goons fixated on convincing me that March is somehow not the worst. Typically these cultists argue that February is the worst. Granted, February enjoys much of the same shitty weather as March, but it is also — BLESSEDLY! — short. However bad the month gets, it’ll be over soon. Yeah, Valentine’s Day isn’t for everyone, but even cynics can partake in the perverse delight of shitting on Valentine’s Day and all its treacle.
Best of all, every four years there’s a whole day that wasn’t there before. Try a new type of food next Leap Day, or kill a stranger on the street. It doesn’t count!
The Collinwood School Fire
110 years ago this month, 172 children and 3 adults perished inside Lake View School during the infamous Collinwood School Fire on Cleveland’s East Side.
Is that why you’re trying to convince me March isn’t crap?
You sick fuck!
The Ides
Is there any other month with a day that’s universally famous for dire warnings?
Know what, March apologists, you’re right. March is much better than February…for getting fucking STABBED!
I’m sorry if you were cursed with a March birthday and have nothing to look forward to besides cold muck, or at best a Lenten fish fry. You are not a bad person just because you were born in a bad month. I know some real monsters who were born in June! I’m glad, March babies, that you have some glimmer of joy in this most joyless month.
And those of you who live for March Madness…Well that’s just madness.
MADNESS!
