Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Holidaze craze a sheer waste of frivolity

Scott Dickensheets

Saturday, Jan. 17, 1998 | 7:06 a.m.

IN HONOR of National Find Something to Columnize About Month, or Week, or Day, whichever it is, whenever it may be, if it even exists (I'm a bit hazy on the details), I want to consider the implacable forces of the universe that can compel a man to look deeply into himself and decide, That's it! What this world needs is National Answer Your Cat's Questions Day!

That's Thursday, by the way. Get thee to a Hallmark rack.

It's one of dozens of gimmicky "holidays" and completely beside-the-point anniversaries promoted by pranksters, marketers and organizations with nothing better to do. They appear on no calendar published by sane people. At first glance, they seem to have no reason to exist other than to give their creators a chance to issue nutty press releases.

Thus, the Wellness Permission League urges you to meditate on your cat's questions and answer them. Thus, the Michigan Bean Commission urges you to celebrate National Baked Bean Month in July; I'm imagining bean parties all over the nation as Dockers-wearing friends gather around the bean vat, sharing bean memories, or, when the giddy spirit takes over, reenacting bean-relevant scenes from classic movies and literature.

There are more, of course: National Splurge Day (June 18, although my wife has begun celebrating early); National Bad Poetry Day (Aug. 18); Cranky Co-Workers Day (Oct. 27 and every other workday of the year); National Bingo Month (December). March 2-8 is National Procrastination Week, which was probably put off from an earlier -- Yikes! I'm playing right into their hands!

These occasions would hardly be worth mentioning if I didn't have this space to fill, but, having mentioned them, this is where I give them the business, harrumphing Andy Rooney-like about the sheer time-wasting frivolity of it all, particularly in a country where problems are multiplying and solutions are dividing.

Nah. I'm heartily in favor of time-wasting frivolity; it's the one thing I'm good at. Anyway, such manufactured occasions arise at the confluence of our powerful need to celebrate milestones of progress and our even more powerful need to trivialize in the face of life's overwhelming absurdity. Or something like that; this isn't National Provide Lofty Explanations for Silly Occasions Day. Suffice to say that such holidays are probably their own wellness permission league: What better way than National Privy Digger's Day (May 7) to poke a finger into the bony chest of Fate, and when Fate looks down, pop him in the nose? It's good for us.

In that spirit, I'd like to propose a few cathartic holidays myself: National Leave Welts on Dave Courvosier Day, for instance (complete with complimentary rolled towels, ideal for snapping); or National Get Outta the Fast Lane, Granny Day, to commemorate the little old lady in the gray Honda Accord who made me late the other day. What the hell, let's celebrate it for a whole year.

I don't expect you to share my enthusiasm for this holidaze, but perhaps you should celebrate at least one -- June 23, National Columnists' Day. Swing by my office with your small tokens of admiration, your congratulatory bundt cakes, your best-wishes cards handsomely printed on recycled paper. Just leave the rolled towels at home.