What month has five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays?
If anybody asks you that question, you more than likely would want to know what foolishness they are talking about because as far as you are concerned, such a thing is not possible. You have never heard about such a month, seen such a month and never even read about such a month.
But there is such a month and for those of you who are totally unaware that there could be five Fridays, five Saturdays, and five Sundays in the same month, go for your calendars and open them to October 2010, this very month in which we are living. Now look at the Fridays and count – one, two, three, four and five. Yes, there are five.
Now to the Saturdays – one, two, three, four and five. You didn’t believe me but now you know there are five Saturdays too. And what about the Sundays? Count them for yourself – one, two, three, four and yes five. Well, what do you know – there are indeed also five Sundays in this month of October 2010.
This “believe it or not” piece of information is being circulated via social networking websites as well as email and is now going around Barbados by BB Messenger as well. The message also claims that this combination of days only happens once every 823 years and that such a month is a “money bag”. If you forward it to at least eight friends, money will come your way in four days. Well, I am passing it to all of you, my friends, which means that by Wednesday a bag of money should be falling into my lap.
That’s not all. The message also warns that based on Chinese feng-shui, whoever stops circulating the message “will experience nothing good”. Fortunately, the piece of Thomas in me never allows me to take such so-called unusual facts for granted and I went and investigated the matter. Guess what I came up with?
It is true that October 2010 has five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays but there is nothing very interesting or unusual about that. And it certainly is not true that such a combination only happens every 823 years. In fact, such combinations happen every few years and the last was as recent as October 2004. Moreover, if you live to see October 2021, that month will also carry five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays.
This message about October is just a revamped version of another “interesting fact” that was circulated earlier in the year and suggested that August 2010 was special because it had five Sundays, five Mondays and five Tuesdays.
But guess what? Any month that has 31 days also has three consecutive days that occur five times in the month. For example, December this year will have five Wednesdays, five Thursdays and five Fridays.
Do you know that what means? It means that it is a “gifts month” and that you will receive lots of gifts but only if you forward this information to eight of your friends. If you don’t, the only thing you will get in December is Christmas.
• Al Gilkes heads a public relations firm.
