Juny

It’s August. Which means I’ve missed a deadline for a monthly newsletter that I was supposed to complete by July 25th. I’m not a slacker (well, maybe), I just thought that I had already done it.

I’m sure you’re wondering how I could have imagined I created a whole non-existent newsletter. Pretty simple—I just have a bizarre form of dyslexia when it comes to the months June and July. Basically I’ve never learned to distinguish them as two separate months.

You have to admit it’s easy to get confused. They’re both four-letter words that start with “J”, they’re both summer months, and for the first 22 years of my life, they were summer vacation. Months with no dates, deadlines or goals. Nothing but playing, camping, reading, watching TV. Then August arrived with its “A” and back-to-school ads, and panic attacks. (I’m sure it’s no coincidence that August starts with “AUGhhh”.)

Never mind how many years I’ve had since college to figure this out. It’s just not happening. I can’t count how many times I’ve mixed up dates or paid bills only one of the two months. I bring checkout lines to a standstill, staring at my checkbook in a daze trying to remember what month it is. And heaven help me if I have to write the date in numerical format, because even if I’ve figured out the correct month, I’m still not sure if it’s 6/ or 7/. Even a national holiday called “4th of July" doesn’t help me get it right.

Since summer in Michigan is way too short to cram in all the swimming, biking, vacationing, gardening, and day-trips I’d like to do, I’ve come up with a great idea. Let’s just officially declare June and July to be one month—Juny. There would be only one month’s worth of bills, deadlines, work and responsibilities, but eight wonderful summer weeks to get it done. No more missing events because I wrote it on the wrong month of the calendar. Juny will be a confusion-proof 61 day month. (Sorry 4th of July, you will now be 34th of Juny).

I’m already on board with this plan. Just need to e-mail all my elected government officials to see if they’ll go along with it. Hope you’ll join me!