Since hominids became sentient we have defined our existence by recurring periodic intervals of days, seasons, years and generations. In our infinite desire to put reason to randomness, we have subdivided these periods into arbitrary subsections … weeks, months, decades, not so much to understand where we are, but to forecast where we will be. If a condition recurs at a certain interval with any regularity, we come to expect it in the future. But it is like the lottery — no matter how many times you play, the odds are always the same. If you flip a coin three times and it comes up heads each time, what then is the probability of it landing tails on the fourth flip? As you see, just like most of our daily activities, the past only influences our expectations and not the reality of random circumstances. And, when our lives deviate from those expectations and anticipations something feels out of kilter. [Like a Scotsman who’s dropped his … well you get the picture. If you didn’t get the picture, please send a stamped, self addressed envelope to NAKED SCOTSMAN OFFER, P.O. Box 5634-23A, Newark, NJ 08116 and one will be provided free of charge*.]
*There will be a $49.95 handling fee charged to your VISA or MasterCard.
In an effort to clarify what each day is supposed to feel like, I have gathered the following information from ancient Greek texts, inscriptions in the Pyramids of Khufu and Teotihuacán, and Aramaic scrolls.
Sunday: The Official first day of the week, according to Gregorian Monks who worked every day of the week trying to figure out what a good haircut was supposed to look like. This day is supposed to be the holiest of days according to the Christian religion. This is demonstrated by the worldwide practice of people calling out to Jesus over the porcelain alter. Rather than feeling like a hopeful beginning, Sundays tend to feel like the termination of a cycle as if the buzzer on the great Laundromat dryer of life just went off and now it’s time to fold.
Monday: The unofficial first day of the week since the inception of an industrialized society. Many employers found that employees tend to pray too much on Sundays and therefore perform poorly. However, upon evaluation, they determined that if the workers could be distracted by men in tight uniforms jumping all over themselves [remember, ladies, this was before women had entered the workforce] they’d be more likely to show up on Monday’s to deny their obvious homosexual tendencies. Monday is supposed to feel like falling backwards off a long pier without the knowledge of whether you will land in a soothing ocean with a gentle surf, a turbulent riptide churning with kelp and sharp-edged clam shells, or a steaming pile of seagull shit on cold abrasive sand.
Tuesday: The lost day. Tuesdays are more a figment of the imagination than any real day. Since Adam ate the apple [okay, scripture says he ate a fruit and not an apple, per se, but how gay do we really need to make the bible?] and learned that his fig leaf needed changing every seven days*, mankind has been struggling with the purpose of Tuesdays. Tuesday’s chameleon character permits it to feel like different things depending on the environment in which it’s felt. In most circumstances, Tuesdays feel like the soft underbelly of a roasted marshmallow about to be squeezed into a graham cracker coffin.
*Eve learned a 28 day lesson from the tree of knowledge as covered in the Hebrew Book of Gynecology 3:28-47.
Wednesday: Affectionately called “hump day” and supposedly marking the midpoint of the work week to evoke feelings of an accelerated decline to the remaining two days, Wednesdays seldom achieve their objective. Wednesdays in general, are the day when people realize that they have already wasted the first two workdays playing computer solitaire, comforting themselves with the thought that they still have most of the week remaining to get their work done. The harsh realization that the end of the week is approaching causes a flurry of bulging in-baskets and project folders to be shuffled to underlings’ desks or unsuspecting department heads’ credenzas, causing elevated stress levels rippling through the work environment like a bowling ball cast into a cesspool. To complete the destruction of the nickname, this heightened anxiety is a major cause of erectile dysfunction, precluding the possibility for much humping, if any to happen on this day. Wednesdays feel like the used chewing gum stuck to the underside of a Viagra vending machine.
Thursday: The latter-day equivalent to Tuesdays. The Mormons adopted Thursdays as their own with the express purpose of catching people at home, before they gathered their belongings and fled to the relative safety of door-banging-evangelist-free Avalon, and other Jersey shore points. Thursdays are the unofficial end of the work week since the incentive to work on Fridays is subjugated to the anticipation of the decadence of the weekend. In geological terms, Thursday represents the cataclysmic event associated with the extinction of the dinosaurs and the end of the last glacial ice age. Biblically, Thursdays do no exist. A Thursday will often feel like a neutrino caught between the magnetic fields of opposing superconductors, or, for the Walmart crowd, two boxes of generic cookies and a folding plastic umbrella.
Friday: The holiest of unholy days, Friday is the mardi gras of the work week. Every road becomes Bourbon street at 5 o’clock [except for the NY southern expressway which will become Bourbon Street 4 hours later due to a disabled tractor trailer in Brooklyn]. Friday’s fleeting festival of indulgence coincides with the traditional partial dispersal of payroll checks, usually directly into the bartender’s personal account, followed by the need for bail in the morning, which is the reason for traditional extended banking hours on Fridays. Fridays feel like Captain Ahab’s self-induced coma.
Saturday: The bonus day of the week. Saturdays fall into one of three general categories. First is the day of recuperation before extending the Friday festivities for an additional rotation of the Earth. This is almost always followed by a day of worship [see Sunday]. The second iteration of Saturday is the domestic chore. From the cutting of grass to the mopping of floors, household duties occupy a large block of the suppressed leisure time of suburbophiles. Running with scissors would be preferable to the squandering of a precious resource, unless your family name was Depp or Price, then you‘d have to use the alternative ‘running with scissorhands’. Finally, the most misunderstood use of Saturdays is that of misdirected self-delusional escapism. As the name implies, the reason escapes me, but is generally filled with activities to promote the concept that there is the smallest hope that the weekly cycle will, at one point be broken. This is the most dangerous as it invariably leads to civil service and the ownership of illegal assault weapons. Regardless of which version is practiced, Saturdays feel like petting a porcupine the wrong way.