An occasion for every impulse
by Scott McNutt
It's that time of the month again. Time to curse everyone you know for neglecting to send you a happy Groundhog Day (Feb. 2) card.
What's that you say? You didn't know you were supposed to exchange salutations for Groundhog Day? Well, why the hell not? Don't you send cards on just about every other occasion? Aren't you one of those people who ship out mass quantities of chirpy little greetings for Christmas and New Year's, replete with computer-generated updates of how you, your SO (Significant Other), and all your little SOBs (Significantly Offensive Brats) are faring? If you must seize the day to make me the unwilling audience for your biannual family history lecture, why stop with Christmas Day, Thanksgiving Day, or my birthday, which just passed thankyouverymuchforabsolutelynothing? Why not ruin all the other days too?
Yes, why not send Groundhog Greetings? After all, Groundhog Day is a respectable occasion, one with a long and storied tradition, beginning in ancient Ireland as the pagan holy day Imbolc, which celebrated the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. When Christianity overran Ireland, the church fathers covered over the old pagan holidays with saints' days in much the same way one dog will cover over another dog's scent mark. So Imbolc became Candlemas, blessing the candlemakers or something like that.
Candlemas was imported into Pennsylvania by German immigrants who were known as "Pennsylvania Dutch" because they knew they'd get beaten up a lot if their neighbors thought they opposed invading Iraq. Thus, to keep the European origins of their holiday secret, they changed its affiliation from masses of candles to groundhogs, because nothing is more American than a groundhog.
So Groundhog Day is every bit as worthy of celebrating as that other big February occasion we're always hearing about, National Snack Food Month. (Scandalous news: Even though February is National Snack Food Month, the national Snack Food Association is snubbing it; the SFA's not holding its 2004 Potato Chip Seminar until March. If you think I'm joking, go to www.sfa.org.)
If you must send your sterile, generic, "Gee, my nu-kew-lar family smells terrific" messages, why not do it with style, with a little panache? Why settle for standard holidays when every day can be a special occasion to annoy me? We have to look no further than today's date (Feb. 5) for just the momentous event for you to pester me.
February 5 is Bob Marley Day in Jamaica, World Disaster Day, and National Weatherperson's Day. It's the birthday of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Christopher Guest, Dwight Moody, and Barbara Hershey. On this date in history, the peep show machine was patented (1861), luggage inspection by U.S. airlines became mandatory (1972), and Toto's "Africa" reached No. 1 on the singles charts (1983). You see? February 5 is a date fraught with significance. And if those tidbits aren't enough cause to celebrate today, you can find more at www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/6293/glfeb.htm. Party on.
Sure, you can settle for being mundanely, unimaginatively annoying like all the other Christmas-card pushers. But why, when you can be uniquely bothersome with the occasion(s) of your choice? What's the point of even having St. Agatha's Day (patron of bell ringers and wet nurses) on February 5 if someone doesn't take it as an excuse to irritate me?
But perhaps you feel my indignation is out of proportion to the potential offense. Maybe you think being offended by greeting cards is silly. Allow me to say in my defense: Stuff it, wacko. If a sense of proportion is what you seek, get yourself a video of Anna Nicole's boob expansion project. This column's reputation is built on snarling with equal fervor about the trifling and the transcendent alike. Its history spans spewing over the slight and the significant, equally contemptuous of all. We at "Snarls" get bent out of shape every time Dubya spindles, folds and mutilates U.S. foreign policy; we go on a bender every time "like" is unnecessarily inserted in conversation; and every example of your obsession with Ben & Jen sends us right 'round the bend. We do not suffer foolishness gladly.
And we do not like greeting cards. We do not like them, Sam I Am.
Besides, nobody sent us one for our birthday. *Sniff*
February 5, 2003 * Vol. 14, No. 6
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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