Staring at the Calendar Like a Doofus
Okay, so last week I needed to know exactly how many days were left until April 12th. Don’t ask why, it wasn’t some world-changing reason, just stuff I had going on. My first brilliant thought? Grab the dang calendar off the wall and start counting squares. Like some kind of caveperson scribbling on rocks. “Fiiiiine,” I mumbled, “let’s see… starting from today… one… two… three…” This went on for like five minutes, my finger hopping across squares, getting lost near the 28th, forgetting which day I even started on. Utterly useless. I felt kinda stupid wasting time like that.
The Excel Disaster
Right, calendar counting was dumb. Time for something smarter! I fired up my old laptop. Remembered something about Excel doing dates. Opened it up, stared at the blank sheet like it held the secrets of the universe. Typed today’s date in one cell. Typed “April 12th” in another. Now what? Tried typing =B1-A1 between them. Hit enter. Excel just looked back at me blankly. Nada. Just showed the date formula, not the number. What the heck? Googled “Excel date difference,” skimmed some ancient forum post telling me to use DATEDIF. Sounded complicated. Tried it anyway: =DATEDIF(A1, B1, "d"). Prayed. Excel threw some weird error I couldn’t even understand. Smacked the keyboard lightly. “Why is this so hard?!” Just wanted a simple number!
Python Panic (Briefly)
Fine. Forget Excel. I knew a tiny bit of Python, right? Maybe I could write a teeny script. Opened that scary black terminal window. Typed python nervously. Okay, imported the datetime module. Set today = *(). Then set target = *(2024, 4, 12). Mistyped April as month 5 at first, like a total goof. Brain fart. Fixed it. Then tried: difference = target - today. Printed . Boom! It spat out a number! Wow! It worked! …For about 10 seconds of triumph. Then reality hit. Who the heck wants to open a terminal and type Python code just to count days? Not me, not you, nobody. Felt way overkill. Plus, gotta make sure Python’s installed? Forget it. Closed the terminal feeling both smug and ridiculous.
The Glorious Google Sheets Cop-Out
Felt tired after all that fighting. Figured there HAD to be an easier way. Didn’t feel like coding anymore. Opened a fresh Google Sheet in my browser. Similar to Excel pain, but less messy. Typed today’s date in cell A1 again. Typed “4/12/2024” in B1 (careful not to type May this time!). Then, in a moment of pure desperation, typed =B1 - A1 in cell C1. Held my breath. Hit enter.
BOOM.
Just a plain number showed up. The difference in days. Simple as anything. No errors, no crazy formulas to remember like DATEDIF, no programming languages needed. Why didn’t I just do this first?!
So yeah, turns out the easiest way to find out how many days until April 12th (or any date) isn’t counting calendars, wrestling Excel, or flexing Python muscles. It’s just opening Google Sheets and doing a simple subtraction. Subtract the dates. Get the days. Done. Still better than counting squares.
