This makes Me So Tens.

My New Year's resolution for 2010 is to not let this bother me.
The first century AD was years 1 - 100.
The second century was 101 - 200.
Hang on, because I'm going to skip ahead.
The 20th century was the years 1901 - 2000.
The 21st century goes from 2001 to 2100.
It follows that the first decade of the 21st century started with 2001 and will end with 2010.
I thought the Associated Press would know that. They write, however, that "Revelers across the globe at least temporarily shelved worries about their future prospects to bid farewell to the first decade of the 21st century."

I blame Obama. He faked his birth certificate to show that he was born in Hawaii in 1961. He was actually born in Bethlehem in the year 1. No wait, I'm reading literature from his election committee. Anyway, the confusion about his birth throws off the whole perception of our calendar.

Obamacare created death panels that are euthanizing First-Decade Father Time a year early. The left wing socialist agenda has taken away our country and now this. Take back our decade from Obama!

I get that we consider decades to be those ten years that have a common number in the 10s place. The 90s started with 1990 and ended with 1999. It would be silly to call 2000 part of the 90s. So I know we're bidding farewell to the zeros or the aughts or something. And I think that's the problem.

Saying that we are ending the decade of the aughts makes us feel ancient. No one uses the word "aught" anymore, mainly because no one knows what "aught" means, any more than they know when the century starts and ends. We're not going to call it the "zeros" either because it just reminds us how many zeros we lost off the end of our investments and how many zeros we gave to bailout the people who lost them.

This is why people, including the AP just say we're ending the first decade of the century. We're lazy and disgusted and just want to have a fresh start, even if we have to twist reality a bit. Why not, that was the hallmark of the past ten years.

So I'm willing to embrace a new beginning, I just can't help cringing when people can't count the years properly. I'm happy I have only a few more hours to let it bother me. No, wait. I have another year left.

(Obama death panel image from here)