March is the best month in the universe. In fact, were you to tell me that I had but one month left to live, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that I would want to spend it in March. It is the greatest month in human history, and I’ll tell you why.

The Madness: Sure, we’ve hit a rough patch here at home, what with the Cats looking about as hard as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and head coach Lute Olson still trying to shake (get it?) the Parkinson’s rumor.

But scoring droughts and assist-turnover ratios that look more like batting averages (that’s really bad, for the non-sports fans) can’t stop us from betting $1 games against our friends and then gloating victoriously after we decimate them with second-round picks, and they end up owing us a handsome six bucks.

Spring Break: This is the greatest gift the university ever gave us. Seriously. Try this out after you graduate: go tell your boss that the last round of conference meetings and project deadlines really left you fried and that a week’s vacation of binge drinking in Mexico would go a long way to increasing productivity. You get the idea.

St. Patrick’s Day: This is either proof that: a) God exists and has enormous adoration for college students whom he wants to see happy, or b) God exists and hates college students so He added yet another excuse to drink between spring break and The Dance, hoping that some of us might physically drink ourselves to death. Bright spot: either way, St. Patrick’s Day proves God exists. Relief.

(Side note: go do a little bit of research on St. Patrick. It seems that people knew he was a Christian missionary who did, um, some missionarying, but no one really knows anything more than that. Oh, and he wasn’t Irish.)

The Other Well-Knowns: The end of Mardi Gras, Good Friday and a few other Christian holidays, plus my roommate Scotty’s birthday. OK, interestingly, there are still some other really cool events that happened in March that many of us probably aren’t normally paying attention to.

Obscure Reasons Why March is Awesome: This March marks the four-year anniversary that the American forces of good ousted the Iraqi evildoers and brought peace and justice to Earth.

Paint a mental picture: An aging Saddam Hussein lopping off a young Donald Rumsfeld’s hand in a light-saber fight and dramatically revealing that he is, in fact, Rumsfeld’s father. Would anyone really be that surprised? Everything makes a little more sense now, doesn’t it?

Also, March is home to Nouruz, the Iranian New Year’s celebration. Talk about a party. Do you think Iranian New Year’s parties also climax with a room full of lonely middle-aged drunks stumbling over the lyrics to “”Auld Lang Syne””? Something like: “”Should old acquaintance be forgot we’ll bomb the imperialists next time …””

Speaking of that area of the world, March is also home to Pakistan Day. I don’t actually know what that means. I can’t figure out if it is a national independence holiday or an opportunity for all cultural minorities to secede from their respective subcontinents. Keep your fingers crossed, Texas.

Also, I don’t want to continue living in this sham world where Pi Day gets so little publicity. My favorite of all the March holidays, Pi Day gives math geeks and MIT students everywhere the opportunity to, um, celebrate the mathematical constant. I know what you’re thinking. We drink and party on St. Paddy’s day when Pi Day falls in the same month?

Of interest, March 14, Pi Day, is also Einstein’s birthday. More evidence that there is a God … and that he’s a nerd.

Additionally, March is Women’s History Month. Long story short: One wicked lady got us thrown out of Eden, society punished all women for the next two millennia and then women get the last laugh when the wicked lady reincarnates and runs for president in 2008. You know I’m talking about Hillary.

Oh yeah, and in March 1781, man discovered Uranus. That’s true. And I don’t know where to begin.

Finally – and I add this grudgingly – it seems March is also the beginning of the Major League Baseball season. It’s not that I don’t respect America’s pastime, but it’s a lethargic sport for mostly non-athletic white men who look like they would fit in best at a NASCAR race and chew tobacco in the middle of games.

Can you imagine Steve Nash picking up his dribble at half-court to bum a smoke from Dick Bavetta? It’s not a quite a sport, but it’s not quite a good ol’ boy hoedown. It’s ridiculous.

Oh yeah, and in March, the swallows return to Capistrano. Yeah, it’s swallows, apparently – not salmon. I guess that was part of the “”Dumb and Dumber”” hilarity. I didn’t get it.

Stan Molever is a philosophy senior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu