An uneventful ‘Twosday’ is proof numerology doesn’t add up

How momentous was your Twosday?

Did you win the lottery? Did you quit your job to join the Great Resignation? Did you feel different on Twosday? Did the cosmos realign your chakras to herald a spiritual reawakening? Did your grey hair suddenly morph to a lush childhood hue as you whipped off your spectacles with inexplicable 20/20 vision?

Me neither. The first event of my Twosday happened when my wife excitedly cranked open the crypt door to my dungeon — sorry, basement office — to call me up to see something: “Hurry!”

There was an opossum hanging out in a backyard tree. It was perched on a sturdy branch and slowly glancing around with insouciant disdain, like an old man on the subway. I was a bit worried because I thought this was a nocturnal marsupial that should be slumbering at 9 a.m. Was it sick? Rabies? Sent by Satan to gnaw my internal organs on deadline? My wife, who is way smarter than me, said it looked healthy and was probably just scavenging for food in the unseasonably warm weather. It was tricked by time and atmosphere.

She mumbled something about mating season, which perked up my ears until I realized she was talking about opossums. She tossed an apple out the patio doors and took videos for our daughters to see after school.

Then she shooed me back to my dungeon. My chakras never felt more ho-hum.

Twosday is the pun-tastic name media outlets around the world feverishly applied to Tuesday, which according to CNN was the “coolest date of the decade.” Maybe not for Ukrainians. The date — 2/22/22 — is a palindrome, meaning it reads the same forward and backward. You know, like “17871,” “level,” “madam” or baffling phrases on Wikipedia such as, “MR. OWL ATE MY METAL WORM.”

It’s definitely a rare date, these deuces wild on a Tuesday. According to a tweet from the U.S. National Weather Service, these conditions won’t repeat until 2422, or 400 years from now, when Madonna will be 463 and posting photos in which she looks 36.

But, somehow, Twosday felt like just another Tuesday.

And that is why I am now calling for a war on numerology. Enough with the “healers” and “calendar diviners” who have made good coin as shameless charlatans ginning up the credulous. When our ancient forebears started applying a numerical system to days, months and years, some of those representations would eventually be palindromes or ambigrams. That’s not supernatural — it’s the sequential law of numbers.

Am I punching down by attacking numerology instead of other pseudo-scientific crockpots of bubbling nonsense that have turned our culture into one big superstitious stew? Maybe. But there is no powerful Big Numerology lobby that can threaten my livelihood. Numerology has got to be the most ridiculous field in a paranormal taxonomy that is beyond ridiculous. The dud thud of “Twosday” proves these lunatics need to go.

I believe Feng shui is also bollocks. But at least this multibillion scam is not encouraging people to get married on Twosday, or make a radical change that won’t endure until Friday. There are people who believe the Earth is hollow. There are people who believe Mars has a human face. There are people who believe a publisher will recoup a $15-million advance to Britney Spears for a tell-all, even though her fan base is more Instagram than hardcover.

As much as I’d like to have a go at, say, acupuncture, I know there are thousands who will disabuse me of my ignorance: “Hey! I was walking sideways like a crab until Leolulanna from the Meridian Labs jabbed my spine with long needles and now my fingertips do not tingle, and I no longer feel queasy while watching ‘Euphoria.’”

Twosday was interesting because it drew a line in the crazy sand. I think astrology is nuts. But I also see the daily metrics for this newspaper. And what I see is a lot of you reading your horoscope. Oh, stop. Don’t even try to deny it. I have the hard evidence. You read your horoscope and then you click over to Ellie.

But if we are going to try to rebuild a society that is fact-based, scientifically literate and values reality, an easy first step is to take a flame-thrower to numerology. Twosday? There is nothing special about a date that has all 2’s in it! I was handed an escort flyer outside a Vegas casino once and the text number included four 4’s. I didn’t think the universe was encouraging me to cheat on my wife with a buxom lass named Brown Sugar!

I threw the flyer away and then lost more money at the Blackjack table.

I’m done with the shady numerologists and even the religious whack jobs who keep prophesizing momentous dates that come and go without incident, just like Twosday. You know what happens when people lose themselves in numerology? They join deadly cults, like Heaven’s Gate, or decide they can only eat lunch precisely at 12:21. They name their kids “44” and root for sports teams that alphanumerically can be broken down to “Angel Numbers.” They blink five times when shampoo gets in their eyes and count backwards from 39 when someone cuts them off.

They cease to be rational cogs in our social machine that is already sputtering with unhinged fantasy.

It’s just after 2 p.m. on Twosday. The opossum is gone.

And as I look ahead, nothing has changed.