So let’s get this out of the way.

A decade is ten years.  So any ten consecutive years can be a decade. This makes the decade known as the 80′s possible. W00T!

But when we’re talking about decades in terms of the calendar, we need to start with this one simple fact: There was 1 BC and 1 AD, but there never was a year 0 in between the two.  The decades in terms of the calendar era (the year numbering system used on the calendar) began in 1 AD and (wait for it) ran until 10 AD.  The second decade began in 11 AD and ran until 20 AD.  And so on and so on and…

So if you’ve done the simple math any 1st grader could manage you realized very quickly that all this bruhaha on every show on television right now about 2009 being the end of the decade is pure idiocy.  Seriously.  Some math-challenged individuals saw fit to call 2009 the end of the decade because they were short of material or needed ratings or needed to find some sort of significance to another day passing by that is arbitrarily the end of a duration of time known as the calendar year.  It irritated the hell out of me in 1999 when everyone was calling 200o the beginning of the new millennium. Um, no. The new millennium started in 2001.

Ten years later I was suffering through broadcast after broadcast full of blabbering about the end of the decade when I saw this from Martin Polley:

Aha! So I’m not alone!

But we’re right. Seriously.  You do the math.