July 14: A Heavens-ly Holiday





Since I started gainful employment, I’ve always considered my birthday to be a holiday. It’s a day to--if nothing else--take time off from work. I’ve often thought about promoting it to a national holiday. There’s one negative to that, though. What do all national holidays based on birthdates have in common? The person born on that day is dead (although, one guy was resurrected) and, quite often, died early at the hands of someone else. I have no desire to go that route. I’m not sure how many global holidays there are. The closest would probably be New Year’s, Christmas, and Easter. There’s still that death cloud dimming my view on those. What about galactic holidays? I don’t even know that there are any. Maybe I’ll nominate myself for one of those.

Of course, we run into the problem that I haven’t done anything to deserve such an honor. I could try the route of suggesting it’s the holiday to celebrate the “common person.” However, that would make me the typical common person and I’m not sure persons commonly suggest having a galactic holiday in their honor. So we’ll work on the holiday part now. The rest of it will take care of itself with the mythology which usually accompanies major holidays. (I’m hoping I had single-handedly defeated the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl, but I’m not going to suggest that as I don’t want to influence history.) But it’s not really about my greatness. It’s more about celebrating that I have a birthday and don’t want to work on said day. And, be honest, wouldn’t you all really rather not work on July 14?

Let’s start off by declaring which day on which the holiday falls. We could go with the first Friday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox after the new year after the old year. Or we could go with July 14. That’d work great, too, because I was born on July 14. July 14th, it is!

Hear ye! Hear ye! On this day, by the authority of some guy who has an infrequently-visited web site, let it be known that from hence forth July 14 shall be recognized as the galactic holiday know as Mark Wentz’s Birthday. Hear ye! Hear ye!

There are three parts to holidays: food, decorations, and traditions. Family, also, but I can’t really help you there.

Food
An important part of any holiday is food. Pretty important in non-holidays, too. Breakfast on this holiday consists of doughnuts. The midday meal doesn’t really exist for this holiday. It’s more like grazing. Get some good finger foods (chips, nuts, chocolates, etc.) and nibble away while doing other activities. Supper is easy: pizza. Some holidays have their wassail, some have their beer, and others have a wine. This one has generic (store brand) soda. Strawberry and grape work best. Orange and root beer in a pinch. Cans and 20-ounce (or less) bottles. You do not--I repeat, DO NOT--put generic or store brand soda in a glass. First, it’ll eat through the container, the table, the floor, etc. Second, it’s horribly couth to use a glass.

Decorations
Blank walls are fine. Pictures and portraits of me would be pretentious. No, there is only one decoration that will do for this holiday: bumper stickers (read: bumper snickers) about me. That should be about it. However, if you really need a centerpiece for the dining room table during the Mark Wentz’s Birthday feast . . . er . . . graze and a bag of Doritos doesn’t float your boat, you may use a football. (The classier lot of you will probably use a tee, but it is okay to set the football directly on the table--held in place by a wad of gum, if necessary.)

Traditions
Read and sing the Mark Wentz’s Birthday carols. Especially those with the patron saint, St. Luxbell, whose job it is to, at 0430 hours, supply all the grocery stores throughout the world with doughnuts made by stoners in a little bakery in what they believe is Shangri La--although it’s actually just outside Hunfratoon, Pennsylvania. And don’t forget the carol about Henry Streator, the stoner who was a misunderstood outcast until he saved the 14th of July holiday one year when he defeated the terrorists by bowling a 900 series during an unusually heavy cloudburst. Because of this, a traditional activity for the holiday is bowling.

We have happy holidays: Happy Halloween, Happy New Year, etc. We have merry holidays…well, one merry holiday: Christmas. Given the activities and foods of our new holiday, there is only one appropriate salutation for this holiday: deathfree. “If I don’t see you, have a Deathfree Mark Wentz’s Birthday.” “Yes, and to you and yours, as well.” Avoiding cardiac infarction on Mark Wentz’s Birthday ranks right up there in difficulty with avoiding a stroke on the 14th of July.

I nearly forgot about the gift exchange. Feel free to exchange gifts. However, none of this picking a Friday after a major holiday and trying to pack everyone possible into all of the stores (I’m looking at you, day after Thanksgiving). There’s no official start to the gift purchasing part of the holiday. Only an end date: June 23. If you don’t have your gifts purchased by June 23, just send a note to your friends and family telling them you no longer love them. Those of you partaking in the Secret Luxbell gift exchange, get your names in now before it is too late.

For those of you whose refuse, because of dignity and good taste, to embrace a self-appointed galactic holiday, I have a solution. Celebrate my sister Pat’s birthday. It’s on . . . well, what do you know? It’s on July 14th, too. What a coincidence! Remember, the important part is that I don’t want to work on my birthday.

So enjoy the festival that is the Mark Wentz’s Birthday galactic holiday. Get your You’ll Log and take inventory of all the fun you’re having . . . celebrating me and my birthday. Stay home and eat. Nobody wants a skinny bowler.

To you and yours: have a Deathfree July 14th!

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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.

© 2007, Mark Wentz