Today may be the day to not know what day it is
By Andrew Z. Galarneau, Buffalo News
What are you doing reading this? Don’t you know it’s National Furniture Refinishing Month? You should be stripping that old coffee table. Or helping your kids with their brush technique, in honor of National Youth Art Month.
All this badgering make you edgy? Too bad. You already missed March 16: National Everything You Do Is Right Day. You think we’re making all this up? We’re not. Besides, Tell a Lie Day isn’t until April 4.
Could the architects of the Cause-of-the-Month culture foresee the mayhem they would unleash? The National Toilet Repair Months (March), National Bubble Weeks (March 20-26) and Act Happy Days (March 19)?
How could they? There is no Kill That Well Meaning But Dumb Idea Month.
We’re not trying to say that there are no decent observations of this stripe. Anyone with a decent-sized vegetable garden will nod at the wisdom of Aug. 8, Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Night.
There’s also something to be said for having a Disease of the Month. Most of the ailments of our time, including some of the most prevalent, damaging and costly to society, get little routine coverage in popular media during that month. Diseases that don’t show up well on a television camera or provoke street protests don’t usually make the network news so this draws attention to them.
That has left people suffering from, say, high cholesterol, to target a month (September, as if you didn’t know) as a time to convince producers and editors to acknowledge their situation. That’s why March is the National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, and National Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Month. All. Month. Long.
I would say that I’m tired of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Month, except that might be perceived as insensitive and bum people out. Which would be a crying shame, since I Want You To Be Happy Day was March 3, and you don’t get another one for another 350 days or so.
Even individual organs have their own month now. In March? It’s your kidneys’ turn. You can thank me later.
March is also Poison Prevention Awareness Month, which at first left me deeply conflicted. People need to be reminded to keep toddlers away from the Drano, and not to store rat poison in a sugar bowl?
But then again, the hit television show of the moment is something called “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” So yes, Poison Prevention Awareness Month. It’s better to be safe than sorry. That’s what my doctor said, anyway, and in honor of Doctor-Patient Trust Week (March 25-31), I will comply. Our relationship could use some work anyway, since I balked at a particular type of examination suggested during the last office visit. Let’s just say it would have required me to assume an undignified position.
“I just wasn’t prepared,” I told my wife Kathy. Perhaps by March 18, Awkward Moments Day, I will be at peace with the notion. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
While there may be sound and respectable roots behind many of these proposed observances, a vast number are simply industrial marketing schemes. I’m looking at you, International Scrapbooking Industry Day (March 4).
Why should we pay special attention to something that’s an everyday fact of life? If I had a pet sitter, would I tip them better during Professional Pet Sitters Week (March 4-10)? Doesn’t that just cry out for the establishment of an Amateur Pet Sitter’s Week? You need one after National Puppy Day (March 23).
Just for the record, we do not recognize March as National Frozen Food Month at my house. To do so would undermine the intellectual integrity of feeding our children Tater Tots and microwaved peas every night since Christmas.
That’s just fine, because the day everyone else knows as Absolutely Incredible Kids Day, March 15? That’s every day at our house.
Not all of these declarations are helpful, though. I was supposed to finish this story earlier, but in the middle of National Procrastination Week (March 5-11), somehow couldn’t find the strength.
Now it’s stretched into National Procrastination Month. My editor, it must be said, has displayed an appalling lack of sympathy. Boy was I right not to tell her about National Workplace Napping Day, March 12.
“You can’t just declare your own holidays and expect anyone else to care,” she scolded.
Well of course not. Not until March 23, Make Up Your Own Holiday Day.
My calendar is already marked.
Read more...
Posts
