Does Anyone Really Know What Day It Is?

Have you ever… thought it was a Monday, when in fact it was a Wednesday?

Something strange happened to my brain after I retired. It took a few months to manifest, but it’s happening all the time now. I don’t know what day it is. Isn’t that one of the questions paramedics ask people who are confused or have suffered a traumatic injury? What’s your name? How old are you? Who’s the President? What day is it?

I can answer the first two questions, although I have to think about the second one because my age isn’t important to me, and that third question … don’t get me started. But what day is it? Half the time, I don’t know. This isn’t because I’ve hit my head, have come out of a coma, or drank too many Old Fashions. It’s because, for the most part, it doesn’t matter. When you are not locked into a work schedule of five 8-hour workdays with two days off, then a Monday is no different from a Saturday. Sometimes, the only way I know whether it’s Monday or Tuesday is by my day-of-the-week pill caddy. A problem arises if I miss a day of pills (which happens) then I can’t trust the caddy.

Even as a kid, weekends meant something… no school! And during the summer, it meant Dad was home. Saturday was the best day since you didn’t have to get up at a specific time, although Mom never let us sleep too long. There were chores to be done and the lawn to be mowed, but after that, Woo Who, the day was mine. Sunday was okay, but it also meant getting up in time to get dressed for church. For the millions of atheists and agnostics, Sundays have always been as wonderful as Saturdays. For my Jewish friends, Saturdays were their days of worship, so Sunday was their fun day. It wasn’t until I gave up the whole going-to-church thing that Sundays became terrific, too.

When I worked “for the man,” the three-day weekend became something to look forward to and plan around. I had ten paid vacation days. By placing my vacation days strategically around a three-day weekend, I could create a five-day vacation for the price of two vacation days. This gave me immense joy. I felt like I was cheating the system.

When you’ve been trained for forty-some years to live your life according to a five-day workweek, not working takes some adjustment, like the realization that you can book a trip starting on a Monday and take advantage of mid-week deals.

We recently went camping on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, coming home Tuesday night. Boy, did that mess up my internal calendars. After years of coming home Sunday night and going back to work on Monday, the day after a trip is supposed to be a Monday, right? Not a Wednesday. But all day, Wednesday felt like a Monday, which meant by the time we got to the weekend, we almost missed the fact that it WAS the weekend. But if we had, what difference would it have made? None. The only time the weekend still means something special is when I’m trying to plan something with friends who still work a traditional schedule.

“Do you want to come over tomorrow?” I ask.

“Ahhh. No. I have to work. How about on Saturday?” My still-working friend replies.

“When is that exactly? Two days from now, three?”

“You’re killing me,” she wails.

Life wasn’t always dictated by a 9-to-5 work schedule. The 40-hour, 5-day work week wasn’t the norm in America until the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. Before that, many Americans worked 60 or more hours a week. And what about the farmers and ranchers who would laugh at the concept of a paid vacation and a 40-hour workweek? Cows still need to be milked on Saturday and Sunday, and chickens don’t stop laying eggs to go to church on Sunday.

This whole concept is relatively new. Before the Industrial Revolution in the early 19^th century, daily life rhythms were dictated by the natural world. You woke up with the sun and went to bed when it set. Cue Beethoven’s pastoral Symphony No. 6, with birds chirping, rabbits hopping about, flowers swaying in the breeze.

Yes, there were bad bits about the pre-industrial age as well, such as the food you ate was dependent on good weather and your ability to grow it, everyone had to work, even kids, and injuries and illnesses treatable today could kill you, and if you wanted to get from here to there, you needed to either walk or ride a horse, which you had to feed every day or it would die. No weekends off. No paid vacation from your daily life. Okay, maybe Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, with its eight furious opening notes, delivered in rapid-fire succession, which are often used to signal doom and gloom, would be more appropriate.

Enter a total change in how people live. Factories, mass production, and new forms of transportation relied on people knowing the day of the week and the agreed-upon time of day. (According to Mr. Smarty-pants, Einstein, time is relative, right?) New systems were needed for scheduling work shifts and coordinating transportation. We can thank Henry Ford not only for the Mustang and the F150 but for playing a key role in the adoption of the standard five-day workweek. Cue the song, Factory, by Bruce Springsteen, a slow, somewhat depressing piece about people trudging off to the factory every day. Or even better, Horseback in My Dreams by Corinne West. It’s a beauty about a guy who punches a clock every day at a factory, while dreaming of riding a horse, wind in his hair, being any place but at the factory.

Even after I stopped working as an editor, we owned a family business where I was on the phones starting at 7:00 am. Now that didn’t mean I was actually out of bed by 7:00. All it meant was the work phone was within arm’s reach. Since we sold the business, nothing is forcing me to be coherent by 7, 8, or even 9 am, for that matter, so don’t call before 9:30 if you are looking for an intellectual conversation … or anytime for that matter, consider the source. I might be awake between 6 and 7 am, thanks to annoying birds and an adorable dog, but that doesn’t mean I’m getting out of bed anytime soon. What is retirement for if you can’t sleep in?

Writing these pieces can be done any day, but I post them on Wednesdays, so I do need to know when a Wednesday is on the horizon. But then again, if I could figure out how to schedule the post in advance, I wouldn’t even have to know it’s a Wednesday. Oh, well. Baby steps.

Look for new articles on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. Next up, It’s a Jeep Thing… Have you ever… discovered that you have inadvertently joined a secret society?

Please leave comments here. I love hearing how my stories inspire your stories.