Taking Off Hump Day
New evidence indicates that the long-standing interpretations by biblical scholars are wrong. That in fact, the day that God rested was Wednesday. Makes sense, doesn’t it, that he would have chosen mid-week to take a break. Of course, with personal responsibility and self-discipline having been the dominant theme for the last coupla thousand years, it makes sense that They would have us work for a full week before we get to rest.
So I want to suggest that we look at Sunday as the beginning of the week, and live the day the way we are now, getting things off to an easy start. Plug away through a typically-tough Monday, grind through Tuesday, and then relax. Thursday and Friday will still look good, and we’ll be rested up for them. And Saturday can still be the general chores and shopping day, which is really work when you think about it.
With Hump Day off, those who truly needed to probably wouldn’t mind working an extra hour or two on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, or putting in a few hours on the computer at home on Sunday, or whenever our personal circadian rhythm slipped outta sync with the rest of life. All of which means that we’d probably get as much done — or more — because we’d be pacing ourselves better.
There are other advantages to putting Wednesday on the shelf. For example, we would attract more people to the labor force; those who think working five days in a row is for the birdbrains. That would lower the unemployment figure — always so distressing — and would likely force extended and better health coverage to the majority of workers. Creativity would soar; think of all those columnists who try to stretch their thoughts over five days and who would become so much wricher in their writing with time off in the middle of the week to rebottle the creative juices.
Wednesday, by the way, is named for the ancient Germanic god Woden, who was considered Mercury-like, for his quickness and eloquence. Another good reason to have the day off, so that we can attend political debates and other sporting events. Which makes the point that leisure industries would surely back the idea.
Having Wednesday off would also mean lower government operating costs which, at least in theory, should translate into lower taxes. The postal service would have an excuse to reduce their deliveries, instead of having to fight for cutting Saturday; the price of a stamp could be held down near to forever. Other savings include gasoline usage with more people staying home another day of the week, and that would mean pollution would decline.
Of course, the likelihood of anyone leading us in this direction is slim to oops, since change is not a hallmark of our society, unless you can make money from it. Or unless the economy goes so far so fast down the tubes that They find it practical to spread the work around to more people. Yes, some would get crunched because their wage hours were cut back, but most were probably getting hurt anyway.
If those with the power to do this were to demonstrate such heretofore invisible leadership, we might also get them to move our celebrating to holidays back from the next Monday -- which was done for the creation of long and commercial weekends -- to the actual date. Then maybe we’d think more about why we had scheduled the holiday in the first place, instead of about replacing the mattress with one on sale.
Personally, I don’t really separate my professional activities from personal, so this wouldn’t have a major effect on my life, but I think it would benefit the great unwashed -- and the white collarites, too -- by inducing a re-examination of life’s habits, and perhaps motivating some worthwhile alteration in patterns. Hey, a little change can do a body good.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.