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One big leap for tenants |
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This may sound
pathetic, but I began looking forward to this coming Saturday almost a
year ago. Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s . . .they just
stood in the way of the real holiday yet to come.
Most people don’t even consider this
Saturday a cause for celebration. If not, it’s probably because they don’t
understand its importance and benefit for anyone with monthly payments.
This Saturday is February 29, 1992.
Leap day. Sadie Hawkins Day. Free Rent day.
Hallelujah and pass the champagne. I
paid all my rent in the beginning of February, as usual, but instead of
the piddling 28 days, I am blessed with an extra day of occupancy, free of
charge.
Landlords must really hate this day.
They hire their high-powered attorneys to draft and negotiate leases for
them, dissecting each detail, making certain every conceivable drop of
income is bled from prospective tenants.
And now, after all the legal fees,
after all the careful scrutiny, they realize that every four years there’s
an additional day in February and they’re not getting one extra cent for
it.
Oh, what a glorious day!
We tenants, the doormats of the
business world, finally put one over on the landlords. It’s only fitting
that this wonderful day should arrive in February. I have always hated
February. It’s cold, wet and ironically (but most importantly), short.
Twenty-eight days. You pay a full month’s
rent, pay your salaried employees a full month’s salary, and before you
know it the month is over and rent is due and the payroll must be met.
Again.
I have never quite understood why
February got so shortchanged when all the other months got at least 30
days. In painstaking research on the matter, I discovered, as expected, it
was a landlord plot.
The current calendar was developed by
none other than Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. Legend has it that Julius, who
had his fair share of properties, was sitting around the steam room with
some of his landlord buddies discussing ways to make their tenants more
miserable. While many initially preferred Brutus’s suggestion of feeding
all tenants to the lions, Caeser suggested cutting the days in February to
28 instead. All agreed with his argument that the tenant’s suffering
would be greater, and it would heighten the celebration of the roman
landlords’ February orgy.
Tragically, a few years later, Brutus,
who among his many passions held the master lease on one of Caesar’s
buildings, was late on his March rent due to not enough days in February
to cover his costs. Hence Caesar’s famous "Ides of March" line
when he added Brutus to his list of delinquent tenants: "Et tu,
Brute."
Whether or not a 28-day February caused
the collapse of the Roman Empire is subject to discussion, but there is no
doubt it has created chaos for modern man’s meager cash flow.
And while Julius Ceasar and his loony
astronomers were to blame for the short February, we must remember Caesar
also was responsible for adding the extra day every four years. So for
that reason we have come today to praise Caesar, not bury him.
Saturday, February 29 is a day for all
tenants and consumers with monthly payments (cable TV, telephone) to
rejoice. It should be an international holiday, the day when the little
guy finally gets a break.
I plan to spend Saturday at work,
looking at my telephone (free), my leased equipment (free) and my salaried
employees (free, free, free) who had the misfortune of being scheduled to
work on Saturday.
I might even give one of my landlords a
call, just to let him know how much I enjoy being his tenant as long as I’m
not paying any rent.
And then the best part of all –
Sunday morning. Taking the day off, I’ll climb out of bed late, have a
leisurely breakfast, and then call my retail stores to get sales figures
for Saturday. In these difficult times where any sales increase is hard to
come by, it’s not often (every four years, to be exact) a slam dunk
comes along.
"How did we do?" I’ll ask
confidently when I call Sunday morning.
"Not bad," my manager will
reply. "We’re up 1 zillion percent for the same day last
year."
I’ll light a cigar, wave around a
fistful of bills and grandly announce to anyone who will listen that the
recession is obviously over.
For the day. |
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