The 50-year jubilee of the discovery of Quadium happened to fall on Leap Year Day--which meant that my friend Qwazi, being a "leapling," was entitled (like all leaplings) to receive a small quantity of the radioactive element as a special gift--and believe you me, we all had to hear about it: that arrogant yuppified bastard canted about it for hours on end, how he deserved the honor and we didn’t, rubbing our "jealous non-leapling" faces in it, even as he foolishly rubbed the rock all over his body, absorbing its deadly radiation, and so ultimately morphed into the swamp-haunting, Beamer-driving mutant we all fear today.

My friend Beth, who is a leapling and hosts our annual New Year’s Eve jubilee, will cant on and on about getting back to the basics and having homegrown, organic food for her daughter; however, it seems to me that suburbanites yuppify every little thing and “getting back to the land” has nothing to do with farming or gardening, but involves the reading of much internet propaganda and spending large amounts of money at places like Whole Foods, but maybe that’s because I’ve had several decades of birthdays and Beth has only had eight.