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EVERY DAY SHOULDN'T BE

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AN APRIL 1st CONVERSATION

By ActionCookbook
1043 comments / new

[last night, on the glorious grounds of Cookbook Mansion]

"Ugh, tomorrow's the worst day of the year on the Internet."

"It's Star Wars Day?"

"Well, no, it's"

"It's Pi Day?"

"No, I mean-"

"It's April 30th?"

"..."

[exaggerated Justin Timberlake impression] "IT'S GONNA. BE. MAY."

"Ew."

"Is it October 1st, and we can finally wake up the guy from Green Day?"

"Okay, you've made your point, but-"

"Did you know that today is the exact day in Back To The Future 2 when Marty arrives in the future?"

"That was last year."

"Was it? Because my Facebook feed doesn't know that."

"True."

"Is it any day on the internet if you're a woman?"

"Fair."

"Hey, did you know it's Festivus? Forget the regular holiday season that December 23rd is a part of, now it's a made-up holiday canon to a sitcom that went off the air 17 years ago and has aged incredibly poorly in every other respect!"

"I'm starting have some grievances to air myself."

"Did you know that today is 311 Day?"

"What?"

"It's March 11th! Three-eleven! I'm going to listen to that lukewarm-flat-soda-reggae-rock band from the '90s all day because I miss high school and like assigning significance to otherwise arbitrary numerological coincidences. It helps provide a shred of meaning and order in the otherwise bleak and featureless landscape that adulthood can provide."

"..."

"Plus, I have always been down."

"I never really listened to them, that was more something for the skate kids."

"That's okay, it's now five days later and it's 3:16 Day! Now I'm going to post wrestling GIFs all day."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Okay, you remember Stone Cold Steve Austin?"

"Vaguely, yes."

"Yeah, so that was his thing, Austin 3:16? Like John 3:16, but with his name! Austin 3:16. It's mildly blasphemous, but cheeky. People loved it. Anyways, it's now March 16th, and I'm an adult who's really into wrestling."

"I'm not judging you for that, I'm just saying I don't fully understand it."

"I can show off some wrestling moves and burn off all that pie I ate two days ago."

"Come again?"

"You know, Pi Day. Like the number Pi. 3.14, March 14th, and so on. But it also sounds like the dessert. So I ate a lot of pie."

"March is really a terrible month, isn't it."

[door flies open]

[shoos Jon Rothstein out door with a broom]

"We have got to change the locks. That used to be unexpected, and now it's become ordinary."

"It's okay, now it's April!"

"That brings me back to my original point, actually..."

"So it's 4/20 day! It's completely fine to be excited about it if you're a pot smoker, it's your day. But a lot of people who were dorks in high school and never touched marijuana are still going to giggle about it."

"In fairness, I'm probably one of them."

"Hey, now it's June 9th!"

"Ugandan National Heroes' Day?"

"No, 6-9"

"Oh. Nice."

"Guess what, now it's 5-0 day!"

"What?"

"You know, it's the fiftieth day of the calendar year, so people celebrate by taking off work and binge-watching reruns of Hawaii Five-O."

"That's not a real thing, you just made that up."

"Probably, but are you 100% confident in that?"

"... no."

"Hey, it's National Bacon Day!"

"People like bacon, that's cute enough..."

"Now it's International Bacon Day!"

"But-"

"Entirely different sanctioning bodies."

"I see."

"Now it's Holy Shit It's 2016 And People Still Think A Fondness For Bacon Is Somehow A Defining Personality Trait And These Are The Same People Who Miss The Inherent Satire In And Later Character Development Of Ron Swanson Day."

"That actually should be a day."

"We'll serve bourbon and everyone can argue about the proper way to drink it."

"Just like my grandpappy did: mixed with Fresca and lots of ice."

"Don't look now: it's Jason Day."

"What?"

"The golfer. His name is Day."

"Oh."

"Jason Day."

"I see."

"Hey, what about Country Day School?"

"Huh?"

"The place I want to send the kids."

"It's too expensive and this isn't really the time or venue for that conversation."

"So, anyways, this thing tomorrow, you were saying?"

"All I was trying to get across is that April Fool's Day might've been fun when we were children, because we had very limited senses of humor, and you could giggle at something like "guess what? chicken butt!" With the reach the internet provides, though, it's metastasized into something much worse and entirely joyless - just a bunch of people who aren't very funny trying to pass off shoddy, pointless hoaxes. And now every brand's social media intern is in on it too. And GMail! It's a great product and it's free but it's also something a lot of us use every day, we don't need pranks embedded in it! That's like re-striping the lines on the highway for a day because it's "funny".

"Would be sorta funny."

"You sound like the state transportation department."

"Ha! Local humor. And how about that weather here? Don't like it - just wait five minutes, that's what I say!"

"You've made a valid point, though. This isn't just an April 1st problem. Through its ceaseless memetic churn and the aching desire we have to bring shape and order to our daily lives, the internet tries to make every day a holiday, but ends up making every day terrible. This is our reality: every day is bad and I have nothing to look forward to."

"That's not entirely true."

"Oh?"

"September 3rd looks pretty good."

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