Luck is not random. It follows a very distinct and easy-to-follow pattern. You see, most of the year (and I'm speaking purely through my own experience, so other people's experiences may be very different from my own), I'm a fairly lucky guy. The fact that I can have my car spin out of control on a highway off-ramp at 35 miles per hour and wind up without a scratch, or that I can flip over my bicycle handlebars at top speed and come up without so much as a scrape-now that's what I call luck.

The problem is that all of that luck just randomly disappears come February. I'm not sure what it is-coincidence, bad luck, or just fate, but there's something about the second month of the year that just makes things suck. Which is why I have (on more than one occasion) dubbed February as the Everything-Sucks Month.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "It's all in this kid's head. He's just psyching himself out by thinking that February sucks in order to pity himself. Poor him."

Funny, I get that a lot.

In fact, that's what I heard nonstop during the last week of January. "It'll be fine, Jack. You just have to keep a positive attitude and things will be fine. If you think negatively about everything, of course it'll be bad."

Naturally, I disagree with that statement, and now, on the last day of the month, I think that those people have been proven wrong.

I'll start at the beginning of the month. I don't think it's a coincidence that my first paper of the semester was due on February first. Normally, that's not a problem for me. It'll only take me ten minutes to write this essay, so writing a paper is never that daunting a task for me. What made it so daunting that night, was the other paper and 200 pages of reading I had. Still, though, that wasn't too bad.

So, I finally finished my paper, but by the time I completed it, it was well past two in the morning, and I had to get up at five in the morning, so I decided that the best course of action would be simply to stay up all night. I had to get up in three hours anyway, there was no reason to sleep at this point.

That wound up being a bad idea. I went to work at five, came back at ten, and decided that I would take a one-hour nap before class at 11:30.

I woke up at 1:19.

I hate February.

I jumped out of bed, snatched my paper off my desk and ran frantically around campus vainly trying to find my professor. Finally, I left it in her mailbox and went e-mailed her, explaining my situation. She was understanding, but, regardless, I still got an F on the paper for handing it in late.

That's one example of February being the Everything-Sucks month. Here's another: this past Sunday, I was just about ready to go to sleep to get up early the next morning for an 8:00 class. I've been asleep for no longer than five minutes when I hear my roommate try to come in. He can't get in. I get up, try the doorknob.

It doesn't work.

I scratch my head and look at the doorknob. I try it again. No, the doorknob has stopped working, trapping my roommate and myself on opposite sides of the door. Now, I've heard of people getting locked out of their room, but locked INSIDE?

"Jack, February will be fun as long as you look on the bright side."

The bright side of what? My door? Nah, I can only see one side of that, thank you very much.

Every year, there are just a whole mess of things that seem to go wrong in February. Either my pet dies, or my car breaks down, or I get some kind of obscure wound... I guess all I can say is that I really don't like February.

Learn more about this author, Jack Lepiarz.
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