Are Monday Holidays Really Holidays?

 

Answer: Friday. Question: If you could take a day off to celebrate a holiday, which one would you choose?

Monday holidays got started as a way to give everybody a three day weekend several times a year. 

No argument with three day holidays here.

So we celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday on a Monday in January. 

And President's Day on a Monday in February.

And Memorial Day on a Monday in May. You get the picture.

The concept was good.  It's the execution Mrs. Linklater has a problem with.

Why did our government choose Monday as our day off?  Why not Friday?

Only a bureaucrat could come up with the idea of taking Monday off. 

As soon as the three-day holiday plan was hatched, someone was given the task of deciding what day to take off.  How hard could it be?

Monday or Friday?  Friday or Monday?

Any one past third grade knows Friday beats Monday every time.

So we can only wonder what they were thinking.

Since it was our government in action, the process may have gone something like this:

Hm-m-m. What's the best way to take all the fun out of having a three-day holiday?

Well, everybody thinks the holiday is going to be on Friday, so let's make it on Monday.

That should pretty much spoil everything.

Monday it is, then.

Monday, the least favorite day of the week. A day that gets no respect. A day that everybody dreads.

A day that songwriters have immortalized in "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down." 

A day that spawned the phrase "Blue Monday."

Is there a more morose 24 hours during the week? A more moribund morning, noon and night?  

How many times have you heard someone say, "Mondays are dead around here"?

There's nothing you can do with a Monday. Restaurants are closed.  Theaters are closed. 

It has no redeeming qualities. Mondays are to holidays as saltpeter is to sex.

Even more annoying is that when the holiday falls on Monday, it has all the excitement and thrill of a -- Monday.

And when you have to go back to work on Tuesday, now Tuesday feels like it's a Monday, too.  

It gets worse -- all week you have no idea what day it is because you're a day behind.

How many times have you thought it was Monday, but it was really Tuesday?

Or said it was Wednesday and it was really Thursday. Clearly, even your body rejects Monday holidays.

By the time you get to Friday, which you think is Thursday, the week doesn't seem any shorter.  It just seems totally out of whack.

That's why Friday would have made a much better and more logical day for a three day holiday.

First of all, Friday is the most beloved day of the week. The most blessed, too.

Thank God It's Friday!!  TGIF!  Friday is full of anticipation and expectation. We look forward to Fridays. No wonder there's a restaurant chain named after it. The weekend is coming. We're going to have fun.

Another nice thing happens when you get Friday off.  Now Thursday feels like Friday. Friday feels like Saturday.  And Saturday feels like -- WOW! Another Saturday! A whole extra day to par-tay!!!

But it's the nature of government to not encourage too much of a good thing. 

Thus it's perfectly logical for them to prefer a Monday holiday. So you get a day off, but it doesn't feel that good.

When you get Friday off, you've got the whole weekend to look forward to.

When you get Monday off there's nothing to look forward to except work on Tuesday. 

And Tuesday's annoyed because now everybody thinks it's Monday. 

Every time Mrs. Linklater hears people complain about government intervention, government waste, and government stupidity, she can feel your pain.

On Mondays.