The Birthday window / Law

I turned 20 about a week ago and I noticed something that kinda happened last year and has happened to other people with me being guilty of the crime: forgetting someone’s birthday but remembering close enough to the exact date for it to be forgiven.

This year was better than last year as more people got it right but still there are some people who are really close to me that said “Happy Birthday” a day later. There are even fewer people who had to be reminded or who still haven’t acknowledged it yet. I am hoping that the latter are planning something for when they actually see me to redeem their sins because they are already in big trouble because it’s been almost a week and no word…

From my experiences, I am going to propose a birthday window or a birthday law. I am not sure of what to name it so I am going to leave it to the experts to do the right naming and just focus on what the Law actually says/mandates: there is a 73 hour? window of opportunity for people to wish you a happy birthday. These 73 hours consist of the first time the day occurred in any time zone in the world and the last time it occurred in the last time zone in the world on the next day.

Was that confusing? Let me explain. My birthday was the 15th of August. According to my Windows computer, the first place to experience a particular day is Nuku’alofa (GMT +13:00). As I was in California (GMT -08:00), when it struck 12 midnight in Nuku’alofa, people from any part of the world could call me and wish me a happy birthday 21 hours before it actually struck midnight in California. This especially works for people who are in Nuku’alofa or people who saw the birthday somewhere like Facebook and would not be online or be able to wish me a happy birthday in my time zone because of different reasons.

Extending it to the next day for those in a later time zone or the forgetful amongst us who realized late (they were thinking of you because they love you so much and they happened to check the date and saw that it was the 16th instead of the 15th and realized they missed your birthday or checked your Facebook profile/wall and saw so many people wishing you a happy birthday…). For whatever reason these people forgot the exact day, the next day is their opportunity for them to redeem their sins and for you to make them feel very guilty and get something out of them if you can (especially if they are close to you :) ). Also, according to my Windows laptop, the last place to experience a particular day is the International Date Line West (GMT -12:00) which is 25 hours after it actually struck midnight in California on the 15th (4 hours after wards on the 16th).

This especially works because of the global world we are in and knowing people across different time zones. I knew people in the Midwest (GMT -06:00), East coast (GMT -05:00), London (GMT), and Nigeria (GMT +01:00) and maybe people in other parts of the world who I didn’t know were in these other locations who said Happy Birthday.

There is now a twist to this. Those who happen to say “Happy Birthday” in the 24 hours of the exact day of the time zone you are in should be recommended, given their props and brought even closer. For example, I go to school on the east coast, but worked on the West coast this summer so there were people who expected me to be on the east coast and so said it a bit prematurely for where I was. On the other hand, there are people (family and close friends) who were aware that I was on the West coast on that day and so called at 12 Midnight California time to wish me a happy birthday.

The cool thing about this theory/law is that it occurs for any type of anniversary and not only birthdays and with the way the world is now because of technology, there’s not really an excuse to forget someone’s birthday/anniversary.

I have a solution to the birthday forgetfulness issue but that’s the story for another day.