Today is a very special day. A day for us all to gather together and give praise to some special members of our communities. We thank them for their hard work and dedication year-round, even though most of the time we don't acknowledge them. But these heroes aren't doing what they do for the glory or the parades that they so richly deserve. No, they do it because it's a job that needs to be done; someone has to do it. Today is LAW DAY, and we honor those professionals like police and lawyers and judges for the outstanding service they provide our communities year-round.
What? You've never heard of LAW DAY before? What kind of American are you anyway? These good people are out there for us, day after day, oftentimes receiving no recognition for all the long hours and hard work they do to try and keep our society running smoothly. And for all of that, you don't even know what day has been set aside for us to honor these fine upstanding individuals?
Well, neither did I until I read the paper this morning. This particular 'holiday' is definitely a new one on me. And anyone who has been reading all of these right along will get an idea of how tough it was for me to get through those first two paragraphs without bursting out in uncontrollable laughter, maybe even injuring myself because of it.
Just who comes up with all these bogus holidays anyway? Okay, I know they aren't really trying to sell this particular one as a 'holiday', but I still think it's a little ridiculous that they even mentioned it in this morning's paper. There HAD to be something else that might have actually been newsworthy that could have been printed in that space. Maybe Britney Spears got a hangnail or something. Even THAT drivel would have been more important than LAW DAY.
There are entirely too many of these ridiculous little 'special days' crowding my calendar. It's impossible to keep track of all of them, so I don't even bother to try. In addition to LAW DAY, we have Secretaries Day, Bosses Day, Ascension Day, Flag Day, (which is rather redundant considering it comes two weeks before Independence Day,) All Saints Day, Veteran's Day, also redundant after Memorial Day,) and I swear I am not making this up. My calendar has December 7th listed as "Pearl Harbor Day'. PEARL HARBOR DAY?!? What the hell is WRONG with people? Do we really want to CELEBRATE this day? This is worse than stupidity; it's morbid stupidity.
There are many more of these ludicrous days on my calendar, but I think you get the idea. What is wrong with our society that every single day has to have some special meaning to it? Why can't it just fucking be Thursday, for chrissakes? This has gotten way out of control. When I was a kid there were only eight major holidays on the calendar, and a handful of smaller ones. We had New Years Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Independence day, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thrown in for good measure were Valentine's Day, Good Friday, Christmas Eve, New Years Eve and for some reason, Columbus Day. I must confess that I never really understood that one. So some guy was sailing around on the ocean and he accidentally bumped into America. So what? I was wandering around in the grocery store and accidentally bumped into a cute chick and her little boy in the frozen foods aisle, but we don't celebrate that do we? And we shouldn't, either. It would be rather ridiculous.
We also had two Mondays in February set aside for birthdays. One was George Washington's birthday and the other was Abe Lincoln's birthday. Then a few years later, when I was out of school I read something that they were going to combine them into one, calling it President's Day. I thought that seemed like a really good idea, since there were other presidents that did good things, but didn't get any recognition for it. But I look at my calendar once again, and I see that now ALL THREE are listed on there. I thought the one was supposed to cancel out the other two? How come we don't have FDR's birthday on there? What about Nixon's? The only thing that Tricky Dick did ANY differently than ANY of the other guys we've had in that office is he got caught. That's it. He wasn't any more honest or dishonest than anyone else who's held that office, and it's too fucking bad if you don't like that.
But this isn't about the moral merits of our fearless leaders throughout the years. This is about our propensity for simply making up holidays, or days of remembrance or whatever you want to call them. And like most things in this country it has gotten so far out of and the only way it'll ever be fixed now is if we abolish all holidays and start over again. Why do we have Memorial Day and Veteran's day? These are basically the same thing, only one day everyone gets off from work, and the other only Federal employees do.
I still think that's where these extra bogus holidays are coming from. The Federal employees, who don't really DO much to begin with, are for the most part so lazy that they will come up with ANY reason for taking another day off. I'm still waiting for them to ask to have 'National Take Your Daughter to Work Day' off. I know that sounds kinda bizarre but I wouldn't put it past them. Although come to think of it, what kind of a lame-ass day is that anyway? Once again I must ask, who comes up with this shit? And where can I find them to beat them silly, (or sillier?)
I think we should go back to celebrating only REAL holidays, and get rid of all this crap created by greeting card companies. And yes, I am most DEFINITELY including Valentine's Day in there. And no disrespect intended to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but I don't think he deserves a holiday. I seriously doubt if he hadn't been shot he would have gotten a holiday. I don't know much about him, other than he did some good work towards making our society a better place, (unlike the people we are honoring today,) but I think even he might have thought the idea was preposterous. But I am of course just guessing there since I never met him. But JFK got shot and he doesn't have a day. Of course, JFK's only contribution to history was being the first TV president, and he only won because he was the better-looking candidate, NOT because he was more qualified. John Lennon was shot but he doesn't have a day either. NOT that I am suggesting that either of these two gentlemen should HAVE a day. Next thing you know Elvis' birthday will be a national holiday. And I will move to Canada.
Seriously, I know I keep repeating myself here, but can we stop with this shit already? There are what? Maybe three days out of the year that aren't set aside as honoring something or other? We're running out of days fast, so maybe we need to start being a little more selective about these fake holidays. Maybe we could get rid of a few things like National Butterfly Appreciation day or Take A Blind Person To A Movie day. In their place maybe we could institute National Blow Dry Your Hair While Still In The Shower day. Yeah, and then maybe some of these cocksuckers who actually follow all this pointless shit will just go away. Then we won't have to worry about them coming up with any more goofy shit like National Smoke-out day. If I didn't smoke I seriously think I would just for that one day, just to piss 'em off. These morons deserve that, I think. But whatever we do with all this, the one we really need to remember is May 25th, which is National Remember The Guy Who Writes These Entertaining Rants Day.
We do need to keep our priorities straight after all.