NOW girls, this isn’t an opportunity comes along every day. In fact, it only comes once in every 1461 days, to be precise. Once every four years.

It’s your chance to propose to the beau of your choice. Don’t fuss if he’s not keen. He can’t say no on February 29. Or so the theory goes.

To my addled mind, February 29 should be instituted as a Downunder Sadie Hawkins Day. Sadie Hawkins, if you remember Al Capp’s L’il Abner comic strip, was the daughter of Dogpatch founder Hekzebiah Hawkins and the homeliest gal in the hills.

Pappy called together Dogpatch’s eligible bachelors and told them he was taking firm measures “since none of yo’ has been man enough t’ marry mah dotter”. He fired his blunderbuss and the boys had a running start. On the second blast, Sadie set off in hot pursuit. First lout she caught, she hitched.

The idea caught on and became an annual fixture, feared with good cause by the men but adored by all the bachelor gals. It also helped make Capp a household name around the world for some 40 odd years.

Not sure why I’m so enamoured of this comic ritual; perhaps it’s because some men might be suckered into connubial bliss in more sophisticated a fashion that this blunt, outrageous, head-on approach is so appealing. There’s nothing like a Dogpatch hillbilly belle, unwashed and lacking sorely in the pulchritude department, rugby-tackling her hapless larrikin and carting him off to unholy matrimony. With three daughters, I watch such rituals with considerable interest.

Why not set up an Aussie version every four years? Might take some of the violence and uncertainty out of the current mating rituals. You shouldn’t land a rohypnol cocktail or a broken glass across the face when you go out. You shouldn’t find yourself assaulted while trying to catch a non-existent taxi home.

A February 29 Sadie Hawkins Day might not be so different from the desperate and dateless B&S jamborees we see around the country. It could ease the load on dating agencies, chat rooms, classified columns, gym circuits,  Farmer Takes a Wife, Bachelor  and other TV Cupid soaps. They’re just variations on the same theme but there’s nothing so simple, or arguably as fearsome, as the unadulterated real thing. You want him? Go grab him and he’s yours.

Mind you, the traditional Sadie Hawkins Day a la Capp could be deadly. The pursuit of true love was just as likely to see you mauled by a wolf-reared cannibal gal as gunned down into submission by hillbilly horrors armed with World War II ack-ack guns. If you were lucky, you might escape with a glue-pot boiling or hide out at the skunk works.

We’d need some basic rules drafted for our domestic species of Sadie Hawkins. No spiking, glassing, vomiting, bashing, dribbling or urinating. Maybe a basic legal contract, too, so blokes don’t wriggle out of their obligations; they’d probably have been hitched soon enough anyway, so why not in a controlled environment?

Other than that, it would be free market, level playing field stuff. And if my guess is right, a walk-up start major event tourist attraction, too. Might even give the Olympics a run for their money. The blokes will be moving faster than any 100-metre sprinter, that’s for sure.