Things I Don't Do

2025-03-31

There is, of course, much risk of repeating previous posts here or on Facebook or on my LiveJournal Blog. I don't care. There are a bunch of traditions in which I do not participate and the imminence of April First prompts me to share some of them.

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You may surmise that April Fools is first on the list. My scents of humor lean heavily into word play and puns, and not at all into pranks and deceptions. I do not enjoy making someone the target of Three Stooges level pratfalls or humiliation. Nor do I enjoy being the target, to the extent that I think an appropriate retaliation is to grab the perpetrator, hold a sharp knife to their throat and say, "Don't worry, I'm not going to cut your throat." Followed by a whispered, "April Fools." Thirty seconds of tension after that should be sufficient to make the... point.

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I've made a point of not making New Year's Resolutions. If one wishes to share a new resolve to do or not do something, there is nothing magical about January First. To quote Yoda, "Do or do not. There is no try." Actually, he was full of feces. Trial and error is a well-established methodology. Just remember that each trial should incorporate lessons learned from previous trials. Doing the same thing over and expecting a different result is just stupid.

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Saint Patrick's Day. First, although I have not taken one of those DNA tests, as far as I know, there is no Irish blood in my ancestry. Those places (looking at you, Boston) that go to extremes to celebrate Celtic Pride just annoy the *&^# out of me. Green Beer just says to me your horse has eaten too much grass. Anybody who pinches me for not wearing green will earn a backhand. I wear orange on that day. Well, except when I worked at the prison, because inmates wore orange and power plant staff had green uniforms.

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Birthdays. I'm 74. It has always been my opinion that the only birthdays worth celebrating are your sixth (old enough to attend school), eighteenth (legally an adult, old enough to stop attending school if so inclined), twenty-first (old enough to legally drink), and sixty-fifth (or whatever your retirement age might be. For me that was seventy.) Growing up, birthdays were like any other day except cake at dinner with candles. Maybe presents. No big deal. For the rest of my life, birthday "celebrations" are Bah! Humbug!

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Valentine's day is for jewelers, chocolatiers, and florists. I never needed a "special" day to tell my significant other I loved her.

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Mothers/Fathers day. Wikipedia says, "The American version of Mother's Day has been criticized for having become too commercialized. Jarvis herself, who began the celebration as a liturgical observance, regretted this commercialism and expressed that this was never her intention." Your mileage may vary. My mother is five decades gone, and as a father, I don't need a day to celebrate knocking up my wife.

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