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Last year, sophomore Marissa Lewis was caught DWL - Driving While Leaping.

No, Lewis wasn't jumping up and down at the wheel. When the psychology major was pulled over by police, she didn't have her driver's license. The problem? The police officer asked for her vitals, including her birth date - Feb. 29, 1988.

"When I told the cops all my information and said I was born on Feb. 29, they made me get out of the car," she said. "They thought I was drunk."

The situation turned out OK for Lewis, but some students born Feb. 29 have learned to play the birthday game with their own set of rules to deal with the minor inconvenience of having their birthdays only once every four years.

Lewis tries to squeeze the most out of the situation, making her friends celebrate on both Feb. 28 and March 1. But other leapers try to approach the subject in a more straightforward way. Sophomore psychology major Tope Akinyode and graduate student Rodrigo Trevino celebrate whichever day falls on a weekend or is most convenient.

But sophomore aerospace engineering major Nathan Schoenkin is set in his ways.

"I celebrate March 1," he said. "Feb. 28 is before my real birthday. It's just not right."

For all the teasing some leapers are subjected to, maybe they do deserve two birthdays. Akinyode said her friends joke about not getting her anything during common years because it's not actually her birthday.

Leapers have the Gregorian calendar, used in the U.S. and most other countries, to thank for their situation. An extra day is added to the end of February once every four years in order to keep the calendar aligned with the Earth's orbit around the sun.

But throughout history, some countries just weren't content with 29 days in February. While converting from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, Sweden made an error that left the country out of sync with the rest of the world. So, to make up for it, in 1712 the country had two leap days - making a Feb. 30. The Soviet Union also had a Feb. 30 between 1930 and 1931, when they tried out a new calendar.

While computer scientists everywhere were worried about the Y2K bug, they may have overlooked another - a leap day bug. For a time, Borders bookstore's online application would automatically reject anyone born on a leap day.

"When I was in middle school, each student had a PIN number for lunch," Akinyode said. "When you used it on your birthday it would say, 'Happy Birthday!' but mine said, 'Happy Birthday!' for about two weeks straight."

Trevino, who celebrates his sixth real birthday this year (24th common), said he's had to deal with nasty looks from government officials.

"I grew up in Mexico and started the naturalization process before 9/11," he said. "It wasn't a big deal then, but after [9/11], people started to look twice or get a little suspicious."

But putting up with inconveniences like these are all in a day's work for America's 200,000 leapers, including rappers Ja Rule and Saul Williams - it might even make their big day better.

Lewis said all her friends remember her birthday because it's so unusual, and they make sure to call her since she only gets to celebrate it once every four years.

But what kind of parent makes their child wait four years for their birthday? Akinyode said her parents had the choice to have her on the 28th, but they thought it would be more special if she was born on leap day. The same is not the case for Lewis's mother.

"She was so upset when I was born on the 29th," she said. "I was due in March, and I was early. She tried to hold me in."

Either way, these leapers aren't complaining, even though they'll have to wait until they're 84 to celebrate their real 21st birthday. And Trevino and Schoenkin plan to celebrate in traditional American fashion - hitting the bars.

Although Lewis doesn't have her 21st in 2072 all planned out, she's got a little something else up her sleeve.

"When I'm 64, I'm going to have a really big Sweet 16 for old people," she said. "It's going to be awesome."

aggro@umd.edu

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