Happy Beams Day

Happy Beams Day! Hoping you are having the most special holiday ever.

What? You’ve never heard of Beams Day? Maybe that’s because we just created it, and it’s the holiday we’ve all been waiting to celebrate togeth…uh, celebrate. Anyway, you’ll love it, just like all the other holidays we’ve added to the calendar to brighten your years.

Okay, so here’s the deal. Inspired by one of my favorite passages from the New Testament, Beams Day celebrates the moment we become aware of the giant two-by-four sticking out of our skulls, rather than picking endlessly at the pimples on our neighbors’ noses. (Not very sanitary, btw.) Jesus said motes and beams, or some Aramaic version of those words, but I think pimples are funnier and this is my blog, not his.

Anyway, I was torn at first about whether to call this Beams Day or Motes Day, since the New Testament mentions both, but it ended up being an easy decision. Looking around the world, both online and IRL, it appears that every day is Motes Day, and it’s only fair that beams get their own acknowledgement.

And it turned out to be really easy to find the exact right spot on the calendar for Beams Day, which is observed on the first Monday of November in every even-numbered year. By a remarkable and unplanned bit of timing that nobody could have foreseen, this is also the day before Election Day in the United States.

It’s a really lucky, and did I mention unplanned, coincidence that Beams Day comes before our elections. Based on all the ads we’ve been unable to avoid over the past eternity, this holiday is seriously overdue.

As always, the guy who voted against funding for the police department is complaining about crime and the woman who voted against cheaper insulin is complaining about the cost of drugs. I think there were two or three ads this year from people who wanted to tell us why we should vote FOR them, but those folks are dopes. The real money is in demonizing our opponents, and doing it so much that theirs is the only name voters can remember when they vote. I have no idea who I want to vote for in my area, but I absolutely recognize the satanic beasts they are running against.

Fortunately, today is the day when we don’t say a single word about any of our neighbors’ failings and only pay attention to our own.  This is the day when we look deep inside and recognize our own limits and those of our own tribe. On this very special holiday, which we just made up, we avoid the hypocrisy of castigating kettles.

From all of us at the Dad Writes Holiday R&D Lab, have a simply fabulous Beams Day. Hurry, though. Motes Day returns at midnight and it will be a lot like the purge.

If people actually switched targets for their vitriol for just one day, would all the algorithms on social media have a nervous breakdown? Hmmm…worth a shot, right after you click here to subscribe.
 

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