Sneaky Easter

Published in the Desert Valley Times
March 29, 2005

Did you notice that last Sunday was Easter?
I certainly didn’t.
The holiday snuck up on me like the Easter Bunny with mugging on his mind.
Where were all the ads for big Easter blowout sales that usually announce the impending arrival of this evasive holiday?
What about the sappy TV commercials with the bunny rabbit laying chocolate eggs?
How does anyone expect the populace to keep track of Easter without these not-so-subtle reminders?
Maybe the advertising industry was caught off guard as well.
It’s understandable, considering that the holiday is such a confusing moving target that bounces around more than a garden-destroying Easter bunny avoiding the business end of Farmer John’s 12-guage Remington carrot protector.
Maybe that’s how bunny rabbits became the secular symbol of such a holy holiday.
Unlike Christmas, which is always on December 25, and the Fourth of July, which is, oddly enough, celebrated every July 4 (except in Utah, where it kind of vacillates between the third and the fifth, depending on whether or not the fourth falls on a Sunday), Easter never settles down on one particular date.
Sometimes it is celebrated in April.
Sometimes in March.
I even seem to recall celebrating Easter in May once, although I might be mistaken.
(I was only four at the time and had a legitimate struggle with that whole March and May conundrum.)
Today, I’m an adult, and I still can’t figure out when Easter will appear each year without a calendar, a calculator, and a Magic 8 ball.
(“Will Easter fall on April 9?” Shake ball. “Doesn’t look good.”)
I’m pretty adept with a computer, and the formula used to determine the holiday even stymies my Dell.
Actually, I believe the correct formula is known only to the Pope and a handful of ecclesiastical scholars who use ancient artifacts to determine the date, including the Dead Sea scrolls, an abacus, an Urim and Thummin, and maybe even a Ouija board or two.
I’ve had people try to explain the method used, but it comes out sounding like a physics quiz, or stereo instructions printed in Aramaic.
I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with Ash Wednesday, the square root of pi, and months where i comes before e, except after c, and sometimes y.
Basically, I would recommend that you just close your eyes and point to any Sunday on the calendar.
You have a one-in-52 chance of being right, which is better odds than you’ll get on the Double Diamond slot machine at your favorite casino.
Of course, figuring the correct date for Easter is still more complicated than the dice game “Craps,” which has to be the most intricate gambling game ever conceived.
(Did you know the “Don’t Pass” section of the Craps table has nothing to do with handing the dice to the next player? I do now. But I digress.)
Maybe someday a courageous American President will stand up and say “From now on, Easter will be celebrated on” and pick a date.
Hey, a President was powerful enough to change time a few years back, with Daylight Savings time, another confusing calendar hobbit, so this should be a snap.
Until then, if we have any ecclesiastical scholars out there, please send me an e-mail with an explanation of how to figure out the correct date for Easter so my daughter can get a fair shot at a chocolate bunny next year.
Try to limit the e-mail to 10,000 words or less.
And e-mails with the message “Buy a 2006 calendar, you doofus” will not be appreciated.
Morris Workman can be reached via e-mail at mworkman@dvtnv.com.