The Important Holiday

Ciao, Tutti!

There's an important holiday coming up that I religiously observe with love and passion, a holiday so central to the lives of men and women around the country that I feel obligated to discuss here. I'm talking about, of course, President's Day. As far as I know there aren't any other holidays approaching, right? Good. That would distract from the importance of President's Day.

If you're not convinced that President's Day is important enough to mandate days off school and some workplaces, think about this: What's more important, snow or the nation's presidents? What's more important, Labor Day to celebrate the workers of the world or President's Day to celebrate the 43 presidents that made work suck for them on all other 364 days? What's more important, "I have a dream" or the Gettysburg Address? Independence Day or the chief beneficiaries of the political system it created?

And if that hasn't convinced you yet, just think: we get a day off to revere presidents in the past, but we don't get a day off to elect presidents in the present.

Um... That didn't come out right.

Anyway, to demonstrate my devotion to President's Day, I will do what I do every year for President's Day. That used to be trekking to Washington D.C., failing to find D.C. Comics, then TPing the White House. But after being arrested one too many times (when I was 12), I decided to do something more festive. Ever since I've been celebrating this important holiday by mimicking as many follies of past presidents as I can manage. This includes, but is not limited to:

1) Sleeping with an intern

2) Robbing a hotel

3) Forcibly evicting scores of Native Americans

4) Spying on people

5) Bankrupting the world economy

6) Invading

7) Building a giant dam

8) Sleeping around while my wife is out (since I'm not married, this folly is difficult to mimic)

9) Extracting polio

10) Getting shot at a play

11) Giving birth to a moron and letting him take my job once I'm done, as well as letting my other idiot son have Florida. (That one's hard, too)

12) Giving money to terrorists

13) Giving speeches

14) Selecting a running mate

15) Kissing babies

16) Having my face carved into the face of a cliff in some North-Midwestern state no one's ever heard of

17) Dropping a bomb

18) Being a racist

19) Mistreating, among other Central American countries, Panama

20) Always thinking I'm right even though I probably broke the world

Needless to say, this President's Day is going to be epic. Epic, I say! My goal is to replicate five follies, but in 2003 I was able to complete 9, including ticking off Frenchmen, spending money I didn't have, and appointing neoconservatives to the Supreme Court. Don't ask me how that last one happened; it's a long story.

So have a wonderful President's Day, everyone. One last order of business: A lot of people, especially in my family, have been sending me pink cards with hearts drawn on them and mushy insets. While I'm glad that you're spreading the love of the season, I've been disturbed by the spelling of "President's Day." In fact, the spelling is almost unrecognizable. "President" is not spelled "Valentine," okay, folks? They're not even...

Oh, crap.

Suddenly it all makes sense.

-Sam goldsmith