Fuck April Fools Day

I'm serious. I hate this holiday.

First of all, I'm probably being way too generous with that term. It used to be that holidays were restricted to "holy days" (crazy notion, eh?) or, at a not-so-painful linguistic stretch, a day on which people could escape the joylessness of work and relax, spending the day with family and friends, perhaps with a modicum of fine liquors, and most certainly without any undue stress.

April Fools Day in no way satisfies that final condition, not when those of us humorless saps spend the day trying to avoid the jerks who crawl out of the woodwork on days like this and get their fill of pranks, puns, and parodies before the day is through. There's nothing relaxing about trying to get some snide idiot to make a single honest, straightforward comment without spewing "April Fools!" in your face and laughing that stupid hyena laugh that can only be ascribed to those for whom the lowness of their level of social etiquette and tact is rivaled only by that of their sense of humor (on an objective scale, of course).

Besides, April Fools clearly falls in line with the trinity of fake holidays used to fill the winter -- I refer, of course, to Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and today. I'm convinced these days exist as "holidays" solely because someone far older and far wiser (and probably far deader) than I realized that Christmas (and, to a certain degree, yes, New Year's) occur right at the beginning of winter, and with the exception of President's Day (and really, who actually celebrates that? anyone?), the somber cold season clambers on with nary a real holiday until the full vestiges of spring have sprung and we're ready for Memorial Day. None of these holidays are real or really that important!

• Valentine's Day, though it may have begun as a saint's day, is now either a) a Hallmark holiday, b) a battleground between the single and the attached, or c) a day to honor the great Al Capone and his contributions to the celebrations.


• St. Patrick's Day, also initially a saint's day, has now turned into nothing more than an excuse for amateurs to step out and drink themselves stupid because they have an excuse (see also: New Year's Day); and, notwithstanding Guinness's "valiant" efforts to legitimate it via their Proposition 3-17 campaign, nothing so blatantly underscores the shallowness of this day quite like the concept, straight out of Happy Valley, of "State Paddy's Day," a day specifically designated for St. Patrick's-like activity (read: drinking to excess) because St. Patrick's Day often falls during Penn State's spring break (read: we wanna get wasted at school too!).


• April Fools Day, like its March counterpart, provides only an excuse for the dregs of society to show their faces for 24 hours without fear of rebuke or retribution, but in this case, instead of targeting alcoholics, we target assholes instead.

This April Fools Day, however, was an occasion for marking two rather interesting and noteworthy events. Firstly, because of a rather unfortunate and untimely rain delay yesterday, the Yankees home opener -- one of the few games in their history scheduled to be played in March, go figure -- was rescheduled for this evening. Normally, though impatient for the return of my boys, I would be okay with this; however, ESPN employs lying sacks of shit (caveat: not you, Amy) who told me they'd be broadcasting the game but then instead opted to show the NCAA women's tournament.

Brief Digression: Hey Yankees, I know it's only the first game of the season, and I'm probably getting worked up over nothing, but 3-2 against the Blue Jays? Don't you think we can do better than that? I do. Because sure, we got seven solid innings out of Chien-Ming Wang, and the Joba-Mariano connection in the 8th and 9th worked almost like a charm. And yeah, A-Rod the RBI machine picked up right where he left off at the end of the regular season last year. But that 8th inning was an embarrassment: Johnny Damon leads off with a triple, and no one can bring him in? This kind of shit ruined the last few postseasons, and I hope this little incident isn't a harbinger of things to come. Just sayin'.

As the Smashing Pumpkins taught us, however, "the end is the beginning is the end" (or was it "the beginning is the end is the beginning"...I can never keep that straight), and as the Yankees opened a new season, the bookstore heralded a long-awaited present that punctuated with near-certainty the career of one of my favorite writers.

Those of you who were reading this at this time last year may recall my reaction to the death of Kurt Vonnegut. I still consider him one of my literary heroes, and the news of a posthumous book of unpublished work, Armageddon in Retrospect, made my heart soar at the end of 2007. Finally, after months of waiting, the book came out today, and my ravenous appetite for the text consumed the better part of my afternoon. For me, a fan and aficionado of the man's entire literary career, it was a warm, inviting reminder of the talent we lost, a book that, though it speaks of the serious but topical issue of war, still manages to come across as comforting. (You can read my full review here, on LibraryThing.)

Danielle, however, is not so much a fan of Mr. Vonnegut, try as I may. But she was excited to see the acquisition for which I'd pined so many months, so this evening I showed her the book. She flipped it over, looked at the picture on the back, and squealed with delight. After explaining to me why, she confessed, "I love Kurt Vonnegut a little bit more now!"

So what was it that sent her girlish squeaking all a-flitter? Try and figure it out yourself. Here's the photo in question:



Have you guessed? Here, verbatim, is her explanation:

"It's a lawn gnome riding on top of a pig!"

That's right, folks. Arguably the finest literary genius of our time, reduced to a kitschy ornamentation hanging from his garden door.

I am so glad April Fools Day is over. Fuck this day.