MR WRONG: Holiday in the sun
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 101
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: It's Too Hard to Remember How Memorial Day Works
MEMORIAL DAY WAS what, May 26, Monday? This really screwed up all my arrangements. I mean, we had this early-in-the-month-of-May occurrence of Memorial Day, and then there was a whole week plus a mostly-May weekend after that, and then the following Monday was June 2, wherein I spent the day wondering why I was working that day, because I knew that there was already a Memorial Day Weekend, but it was right then, at that last weekend touching the gauzy cotton of May, that things felt like Memorial Day Weekend, and this is not to disrespect the idea of Memorial Day, in terms of how it started out as Decoration Day, paying tribute to people who got killed fighting wars for all the fucking rich draft-dodger assholes, (plus the Real people who deserve to be protected from Fascism and stuff), but having that Day of Remembrance forced to be on a Monday tells you a lot about the nature of Holidays in the U.S. Americas, three-day weekend-wise.
I Believe the only Holiday that should be on a Day, as opposed to a Date, is the greatest Holiday, Super Bowl, and also Thanksgiving, which, when I am elected President of the United States of America (POTUS), we will have two of, two Thanksgivings, six months apart, on Thursdays, because people need to get in touch with Gratitude, I’m not talking about that Plymouth Rock crapola, we’re past that comedy, we gotta get Theosophical or whatever, while keeping all that garbage (no offense but you know what I’m puttin’ down here, don’t cry about your Religion, go have one and get the funk out ma face) away from My Government, My America.
So like, all the other America Holidays should be numbered, and then if it’s on a Wednesday and you want three-day weekend, take a fucking five-day weekend, OK? It’s a win-win, vote for me.
Anyway, last weekend I spent the day wondering why I was working, more than I usually, do, philosophically, you know? Why am I here? At my desk? I never pretty much ever work more than I usually do, though, in the more literal sense, literally never. Have fun now!
I’m not alone in this Memorial Malaise! The whole Indignity enterprise was affected by this thing. We (the Editor of Indignity and I) usually go into SUMMER FRIDAY mode after Memorial Day, because that is, like, the Psychic Beginning of Summer, with attendant grillin’ and chillin’ &c., and we were so fuckin’ thrown off our Holiday game that we went and filed a whole Food Friday installment last Friday, when we should have had the GONE FISHIN’ sign hanging up, metaphorically or whatever. My point is, we worked more than we usually do. My whole Mental Summer has been affected by this controversy!
OK, so from now until the End of Summer, we (Indignity), on Fridays, will be observing Summer Fridays, and every once in a while there’ll be some sort of new thing there, so check in on it, but for the most part we will be relaxing and gaining strength and enjoying the salubrious Summer breeze someplace, even if it’s in front of the air conditioner. Thank you for reading and thanks some of you for supporting this enterprise with your hard-earned cash! Have a motherfucking great kick-ass relaxo good times Summer!
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, June 4, 2025
★★★★ The bits of sun peeping through the leaves were the orange of smoke and disaster. The beam of light falling on the comforter was so ruddy it looked as if something had been spilled there. As the sun rose higher, the sky went a yellowish, glaring white. Slowly over the hours the stain faded, leaving a blue faded by something that could pass for haze. People wore wide-brimmed hats against the early afternoon sun, coming down hot on exposed skin. Once the sun was past its heights, though, there was nothing but comfort. A chair on the balcony was not enough; it was time to take the computer to the Park, if not to abandon the work altogether. The lawn uphill from the bench kept accumulating more and more people. Softball bats pinged on the flanks of the Great Hill. A crew of volunteers stood in a line dabbing new green paint on the benches facing Central Park West. A mosquito landed on the tip of a phone-typing thumb. It took some searching to find any unwholesome tinge on the sky, and the lowering light just looked all the more richly golden for it.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast!
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
HEY! DO YOU like advice columns? They don't happen unless you send in some letters! Surely you have something you want to justify to yourself, or to the world at large. Now is the perfect time to share it with everyone else through The Sophist , the columnist who is not here to correct you, but to tell you why you're right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net , and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of sandwiches selected from The new Annie Dennis Cook Book , by Annie E. Dennis, published in 1921, and now available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
Oyster Sandwiches
Take cold stewed oysters; put into a chopping bowl which has been rubbed with raw onion. Chop oysters very fine; add pepper and salt, a pinch of powdered mace, and a small slice of cold boiled ham. Pour in sufficient of the liquor in which they have been cooked to reduce the mixture to a paste, adding a little lemon juice; then with a silver knife spread each slice of bread with it.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net .
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
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