Squared off

Look, I’m a tolerant guy. Live and let live, and all that.

But if you’re going to celebrate National Square Root Day on Tuesday, you might wanna keep it quiet. Your friends and neighbors might get the idea that you are some kind of massive nerd.

Tuesday, of course, is written numerically as 3/3/09. And since 3 times 3 equals 9, we’re talking one of those calendrical coincidences that comes along only now and then. (Thank God.)

Personally, I could go through all 24 hours of National Square Root Day without raising my pulse. But to numbers junkies, this is one of the most exciting days since, oh, Sept. 9, 1999. (9/9/99, if you must ask.)

For example, Ron Gordon, a teacher in Redwood City, Calif., started a contest to get people excited about Tuesday’s, uh, happening.

“These days are like calendar comets, you wait and wait and wait for them, then they brighten up your day — and poof — they’re gone,” he gushed.

Please, Ron, settle down, willya? Is he the kind of guy who has a panic attack when he sees a broken clock?

Ron, by the way, is offering a prize of $339 for the niftiest Square Root Day event. (This is one contest I won’t win.)

Actually, if we can get through the drama of National Square Root Day, we won’t have to confront this nonsense again until April 4, 2016. (4/4/16)

Wake me when it’s over.