A Week Proposal

Why stop celebrating on New Year's when there are so many other weeks to celebrate?

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Did you make an omelet during National Egg Week? Did your spouse stop biting his or her nails during National Pet Peeve Week? Do you plan to have a few close friends over to celebrate National Intimate Apparel Week? These and other national weeks were established to pay homage to the many things we take for granted in everyday life. There are national weeks for hobbies (National Gardening Week, National Karaoke Week, and National Bathroom Reading Week), professions (National Ventriloquism Week, National Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists Week, and National Clown Week), and food (National Pizza Week, National Split Pea Soup Week, and National Pickle Week), just to name a few.

The only problem with all of these festivals is that there are more national weeks than there are calendar weeks, over one hundred, not counting the ones like Be Nice to New Jersey Week, that don’t begin with the word “National.” The following are some observances that didn’t make the official list, and as long as we Americans don’t seem to mind doubling up on our national weeks, we should think about instituting some of them.

National Postal Service Week would feature official celebrations in all fifty states, at least three of which would be open at any one time. Presently, though, the U.S. Postal Service is reviewing this festival, trying to decide whether it should include celebrations on Saturday.

The people who proposed National Physicians Week thought we could commemorate it by sitting in our doctors’ waiting rooms for seven days, but abandoned the idea when they realized we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the festival and a normal appointment.

In observance of National Joke Week, a priest, a minister, and a rabbi would walk into a bar and have a conversation which, on the surface would seem to be religious, but which further scrutiny would show to be otherwise.

To celebrate National Proofreaders Week, editors across the country would check our spelling and grammars one more time to make sure our manuscripts are as well as they can be.

National Politicians Week would salute some true American heroes, our elected officials, and the challenging, selfless, and dedicated hard work they do every day, thinking only of us and our best interests.

National Sarcasm Week: see above.

The shortest of the celebrations, National Tolerance Week, would be held on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday only, because three days is about as long as Americans can stand people who are different. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday would become part of You Know What Your Problem Is? Week. Sunday, as always, would be reserved for religious observations, during which we would learn about how God wants us to respect and tolerate others.

During National Service Economy Week we would just stand in line for seven days while minimum-wage workers texted their friends instead of taking our fast food orders.

National Obsessive/Compulsive Week was meant to honor meticulous people. It was called off, however, when the Organizing Committee discovered that the Refreshment Committee had cut the sandwiches for the celebration across the middle, rather than on the diagonal, and had arranged the cups in separate stacks of red, white, and blue, instead of the alternating red, white, and blue pattern clearly called for in a special vote of the Rules Committee pursuant to Section 3, Paragraph 9 of the Bylaws on Eating Utensil Arrangement.

One of the simplest celebrations would be National Fan Appreciation Week, during which the superstars of sports would say thanks to their devoted fans by allowing the people who idolize them to visit their locker rooms, take their pictures, and buy their autographs.

National High School Graduates Week would feature parties in Duluth, Anaheim, Tallahassee, Baton Rouge, Council Bluffs, New York, and other cities most eighteen year-olds can’t find on a map.

Another event that people tried to put together was National Auto Mechanics Week, and at first they thought it would be relatively simple. Once they got into the planning, though, they discovered that there would be a lot more labor than they had originally thought, and that it would cost twice the original estimate. Besides, the week was supposed to start no later than noon on Saturday, but they wouldn’t be able to finish the preparations until the end of the workday Tuesday, Wednesday morning tops.

My college roommate’s mother knows a guy whose next-door neighbor’s uncle works with a woman whose nephew’s cousin’s sister-in-law dated a man who was one of the organizers of National Urban Legends Week. The observance was supposed to feature balloons in the shape of the alligators in the New York City sewer system, centerpieces made of exploding cacti, and a keynote address from the vanishing hitchhiker in the white dress. However, the week was called off when members returned to their cars to find bloody hooks from the arms of escaped murderers dangling from their door handles.

National Labor Relations Week will be only four days long this year as a result of an eleventh-hour agreement between labor and the organizers that narrowly averted its cancellation altogether. Next year, though, it will be nine days long, and in the third year of the contract will last ten and a half days.

National Teachers Week. Nah, forget it. They already get June, July, and August.

Of course, the cynics among us would argue that even the official national weeks are just blatant attempts by special interest groups to curry favor with a gullible public, and will put this country in the toilet. Luckily, if that ever happens, we already have National Scoop the Poop Week on the books. For these people I suggest National National Week Week, one national week in honor of all the other national weeks. This would allow them to get past all the hoop-la and get on with their lives. Yet, in a country that sets aside observances for laundry, school lunches, and condoms, who would notice if a few of the ones from this list made it into the record?

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Comments

  1. Loved it! Perfect reading for Laugh At Work Week which, and this is true, starts April 1.

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