Designated Un-Birthday?

November 28th is not a likely candidate for “favorite day of the year.” It’s never Thanksgiving Day (the closest it can ever get is the Saturday after) and the post-holiday let-down has settled in like the leaden dark meat making its slow trek through your lower intestines. You spent the holiday with relatives you can’t stand and the ones you wanted to call, didn’t. You were forced to go to the mall when all you wanted to do was watch football and then the teams you had money on lost.

All the leaves are down and sitting sodden on the lawn, there are less than four weeks until Christmas and you haven’t started shopping yet for anyone, New Year’s is less than five weeks away and you realize you kept none of your resolutions—again.

So what’s to get excited about? Sure, the holiday is over. But sometimes getting back to the grind is a relief. It feels “normal,” not like the four-Sundays-in-a-row the Thanksgiving weekend feels like.

The turkey is down to the bone. Now you can go back to eating “normal food” (Taco Bell, McDonald’s, etc.) and forego consuming Turkey Day leftovers out of “prosperity guilt.”

All right, you had to put up with Uncle Huck. But wasn’t he impressed with your story about seeing the guy from “How I Met Your Mother” buying furniture at Sam’s Club? And sure, you forced a smile while choking down Aunt Hattie’s tomato aspic salad—but was there not some satisfaction in watching her dip chip after chip in your homemade humus? She doesn’t have to know what’s in it.

Yes, the leaves are all on the ground. Let ’em stay there. Let ‘em soak up snow and ice and rain and make good compost as they break down come warm weather. The lawn will be all the better for it. And as for Christmas coming in less than four weeks—that means you have twenty-six days before you simply must start your shopping. You can worry about those resolutions on Dec. 31st. (They’re the same every year, anyway.)

The best that can be said for Nov. 28th is, it’s probably your un-birthday. Unless you’re Jon Stewart or Judd Nelson or Berry Gordy, Jr. (turning 49, 52, and 82, respectively.) Or Ed Harris (61) or Randy Newman (68). Or Friedrich Engels Engels (191). It’s the 47th anniversary of the Shangri-La’s “Leader of the Pack” hitting #1 and the 17th of Jeffrey Dahmer getting killed in prison. Willie Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway were married 429 years ago today. I keep track of these things and send such trivia along with a few quotes and jokes to various and sundry people every Monday to start the week off with a smile. If you’d like me to include you in this nonsense, leave your email address at http://www.3amblue.com/contact.html. Enjoy