Copyright The Quipping Queen 2005.

IT’S SEPTEMBER SILLY!

Or, 30 thrilling things to do this month!

Compiled by Lady Beatrice Blitterlees and edited by Lord Earl Craboon

September is the 9th month of the year. No one has a clue why they call it “Sept”ember meaning “seventh” in French, instead of “Neuf” meaning “ninth”.

Obviously “The Association for the Correct Name of Things” hasn’t got around to fixing this error. They have many more important things to do, such as coming up with a name for the newest planet in the solar system.

Anyway, “neuf” or not, remember to get the little nippers off to school on time, and then hot-foot into work with a perky smile on your face before your boss hands you a pink slip this month.

Well now that we’ve got all that yucky-pooh stuff out of the way, we can all begin to have some fun. After all, we’ve only got another couple of months before celebrating Halloween, Thanksgiving and the biggest gift-giving bonanza of them all!

In the meantime, we’ll just practice our prattle n’ puck skills this month just to limber up for the good times ahead.

So without further whatnot and wherefore, just join in and have a ball over the next 30 days doing what comes naturally.

SNICKERING EVENTS & CELEBRATIONS FOR THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER

September 1: National No Footwear Day (Sponsored by the “Kid-in-All-Of-Us” & “Pleasure-Seeking Podiatrists Association of America”)

September 2: Virgo Appreciation Day (Time to honor all those cranky, dogmatic, eccentric, over-demanding, prudish, untidy yet earthy potted plant lover types you know)

September 3: Ever Wonder What the Romans Did When the Coliseum Was Closed Day (An excellent time to design & build your fuel-efficient soap-box derby vehicle)

September 4: National Back-To-School Pencil Sharpening Tournament (A “must” for every parent, student, and teacher…that leaves the rest of us off the hook thank god!)

,b>September 5: Apple Polishing Day (For those who don’t like kissing butts!)

September 6: Loose Goose & Moose Appreciation Day (Every household, organization, and neighborhood has at least one of these rare beasts - shake their hands!)

September 7: Say the Magic Word Day (Choose your name …and ask who has the key to opening “Pandora’s Box” or “Sesame’s”)

September 8: National Adopt-A-Mail Box Day (Time to honor the snail mail postal service in your neighborhood by giving your blessed box a funky name)

September 9: International One-Foot Marathon Day (Let’s see if the entire planet can jump up and down on one foot without complaining or making everything go tilt)

September 10: Is Your Biological Clock Ticking on Time Day? (Time to calibrate your internal clock - can you tell when 5 minutes is up without looking at a watch?)

September 11: Ancestor Story-Telling Day (Time to trot out the old family photo album and hear those tacky tales about Great Uncle Hoo-Hoo and Granny Weeple)

September 12: Grant Me One Wish Day (If the Wizard of Wit & Wonder said you could choose one warm and fuzzy thing…what would it be besides hiking across Antarctica with the love of your life?)

September 13: Funny Money Awareness Day (Time to see how many vendors will accept poker chips, Monopoly game money, or Canadian Tire coupons in lieu of the real thing?)

September 14: Silent Screen Appreciation Day (Time to turn your boob-tube off and twiddle your fingers, go for a walk, talk to a tree or a pet, or play a smashing game of marbles).

September 15: Duct Tape Appreciation Day (In honor of all the wonderful things you can do with this stuff that’s never appeared in a handy-man’s guide to building a birdhouse)

September 16: National “Wing It” Day (Time to join the “improv” group at work, at home, or in your neighborhood just to see the look on everyone’s faces!)

September 17: National Seat-Swapping Day (In honor of those who can’t sing a note, can’t do the bunny hop, and can’t walk on water …but adore playing “Musical Chairs”)

September 18: Sir Galahad Appreciation Day (What would the Round Table be without the best carpet knight in town?)

September 18: Little Bo Peep Appreciation Day (In honor of leaders who appear to have lost their flock, haven’t got a clue where to find them, let alone what to say to bring them back into the fold …other than enjoying the benefits of a great new MLM product)

September 19: Power Napping Recognition Day (Time to honor what gets most of the plebes, pundits and power-brokers through the day without loosing their cool or their marbles)

September 20: The Dog Ate My Assignment/Project Day (Time to honor every excuse given in the book as to why something wasn’t delivered on time, sponsored by EROS - the Excuse-Ridden Organization of Sloths)

September 21: Bat Woman, Bionic Woman & Xena Warrior Day (What would the world be without these indefatigable feisty feline fighters for freedom from kitchen duties if you please!)

September 22: Autumn Leaf Recognition Day (Time to hunt for the biggest frigging dead leaf you can find; dry it out, mount it on some paper and hang it on a wall - frankly it’s better than an etching, and you can call yourself a nature-lover if anyone cares to ask)

September 23: Popcorn & Bubble-Bath Day (When all is said and done…it’s really the little things in life that count …so stock up on them and then chill out for at least one day!)

September 24: Humdinger Appreciation Day (Time to reveal some awesome, extraordinary, or striking person or thing that you encountered in your life that made you go ‘Wow’, ‘Whew’, ‘Whoa’ or whatnot)

September 25: National Doorknob Appreciation Day (A very overlooked little device that most of take for granted until we knock on a door without one!)

September 26: Tooth Fairy Awareness Day (In honor of all folks who hide their lost teeth under their pillows hoping that a pixie will drop by with the name of an affordable, pain-free dentist in the neighborhood)

September 27: Faucet Fetish Day (Time to check out all the plumbing boutiques to find the perfect faucet for one’s high-tech, soothing ablution center in one’s simple abode)

September 28: National Procrastination Day (Recognizes those who’ve made a vital contribution to the 360 degree “yes-but” feedback process, or demonstrated a singularly dedicated response to the amazing feat of optimizing the inevitable status quo)

September 29: Pennies-From-Heaven Day (Time to pay your favorite bills with your favorite copper coins of the realm!)

September 30: Naughty Foreign Word Day (What they don’t teach you on those foreign language tapes - Merde! …if you don’t know one…ask any toddler!)
About the Author

B. Blitterlees & E. Craboon can be found at the Court of The Quipping Queen

Bill Gates announced that he will transition out of his day-to-day role at Microsoft by July 2008 in order to spend more time working on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on global health and education.

His announcement reminded us of the plethora of graduation speeches that eager students imbibed across the land this spring. As we listened to the meritorious goals heaped on the recent graduates, so they might achieve goals the speaker’s generation has found impossible, we could not help but think, why doesn’t somebody come out and tell the youthful aspirants what the real challenge is?

Like it or not, today’s world, as well as many another age, is conducted by two primary forces: wealth and power, and, other than resort to firearms, power springs from wealth.

So if you want to influence the ways of this outrageously necessitous world, consider the stark truth that all power springs from the opening in a fat wallet. It’s called the economic basis of society but, in its current incarnation, in debilitating excess.

When we were recent graduates, we were not aware of such an uncompromising reality and passed up at least two opportunities to make megabucks because we wanted to preserve our mental energy to expend it toward the achievement of our ideals.

Had we been wiser, we would have set aside a few years to stuff our pockets with power and then, like Mr. Gates, have spent the rest of our days placidly pursuing those still-inspiriting ideals.

So we find ourselves, from our own experience, in the unlikely role of advising the most idealistic to enable their altruism by involving themselves, initially, in the activity they undoubtedly are convinced is not the most inviting.

Then, should you be fortunate enough to enable your financial independence, you may, like Mr. Gates, head off into full-time devotion to your undoubtedly meritorious idealisms.

Well, the speech probably would not have been one that would have inspired the administration to invite us back or that the students would have received with endorsement, but the sharp glass on the road through economic necessity is a fact not lightly to be dismissed. Ignore it and you may step on it with painful frequency.

We are often reminded that the sun will only shine in a way that can support life way out here on the earth for only about another five billion years. Sensing the eventuality of the cataclysm, we’re easily inclined to express our concern, along with our sympathetic distress for those far-off folks who will be standing on the earth when old Father Sol begins to turn down the heat.

It seems to us, however, that we have far more immediate concerns, for example, if we can last, in the event of a surprise nuclear war, maybe another billionth of a second.

Of course, there’s also the everyday proclivity of the human race to end concerns about the longevity of the sun for tens of thousands of fellow star gazers by having conventional wars and various murderous sectarian tumults.

But, since we’re all overly familiar with the inconvenient threats we might enumerate that may significantly compromise our longevity, the last more immediate concern we’ll mention is global warming, which could, within a hundred years or so, move the world’s beach resorts up somewhere near the peak of Mt. Everest.

Now, having dilated plenteously on impending challenges to the continuance of ourselves and our posterity, let’s move on to what seems to us the much more logical challenge that the hot news science has revealed about the sun’s capacity for combustion presents us with. As the hoary advisement goes, we should only live so long.

So let’s ask the question that, as far as we know, has yet to be considered. How might we band of explosive rabble rousers last for another five billion years, rather than self-destructing any time sooner?

Or, given our knowledge of other possible abbreviations of our continuance that might discomfort us - such as the chilling fact that we’re currently enjoying just another relatively balmy interglacial period that may only continue for another 10,000 years or so and that an asteroid or meteor may slam into the earth at some as yet unpredictable moment - how might we continue to frolic on the earth for at least as long as it might provide a hospitable abode for us?

First, of course, we should consider dealing with the biggest tomahawks that are in the air, primarily, the three B’s, by which we don’t mean the names of three eternal classical composers but pollution, population, and pop goes the A-Bomb.

Meanwhile, what invitingly positive items might we busy ourselves with during the next five billion years or so? After all, our unrealistic and yet, we suspect, achievable goal is more than just hanging on for the essentially eternal ride; it’s enjoying the wondrous flight through space and time.

So we suggest that, besides obsessing about the well-barnacled threats that have accreted in our minds and burden our otherwise eager capacity for joyful employment and lassitude, we absolutely insist on reserving ample time to contemplate the invitations to delight, large or small, that our everyday lives might provide during the razor-thin mark on the tape measure of time that represents our individual stays on the still acceptably fulgent earth.

For example, if you have something to do today that you know would be a remarkable or, at least, modestly praiseworthy achievement, we suggest you think about getting it done.

If you love somebody, we recommend you consider how fortunate you are, particularly if you’re relatively confident that the recipient of your invocations to mutual affection also loves you.

And so we go, from our grandest considerations right on down to even the most inconsequential massages of our pleasure principle, say, for example, checkers. If you somehow have time to play the game, we suggest you concentrate on your next deft moves. You’ll have a jolly time and, as you know, you as an individual gamester don’t have anywhere near five billion more years to make your triumphant jumps.

We conclude by saying that, rather than being exclusively concerned about whatever we’re to do when the sun flares out, we might more wisely consider occupying ourselves with the view through the other end of the telescope, that is, with the smaller delights and damnations that make up our daily lives.

Actually, when you consider how remote or beyond our influence most of the enormities we’re supposed to be properly troubled by are, you realize, with enormous relief, that the little things which effervesce in our daily lives are really, as bubbles to the tang of champagne, the biggest things.

In fact, it can be very credibly said that the more we discover just how astronomically big things are, like the incomprehensibly lengthy life expectancy of the sun, the more important the little things become. Imagine, then, the true cosmic significance of a ready smile or, even more deliciously, a tender kiss. After all, even the robustly effusive sun can’t do those things, even given five billion years to make the attempt.

We conclude by advising you to recall, as the welter of negative news that is the daily lot of all of us affronts your conning brow, what your grandmother often advised: count your blessings.

As a final service to those who have been gracious enough to accompany us on our wanderings about eternity and immediacy, we herewith present a list of blessings to count as we attempt to make our stay on the earth consonant with the eons Oh, Solo Mio is likely to shine out in a temperate manner.

They are taken from the daringly innovative piece of popular philosophizing by Charles Blaise, called Life Itself As A Modern Religion. If you enjoy this brief sampler, you might like to know that the entire book is a free read at www.toreasonpublishing.com.

We consider it a surprisingly informed and sanely serious approach to our condition, as we hope to be a winningly informed and sanely funny rendition of it.

TEN BLESSINGS*

1. Bless life. It is Creation’s highest gift and the supreme natural form of matter and energy.

2. Bless Creation. It has given us life, in all its forms and with all its possibilities.

3. Bless our bodies, Creation’s handiwork. They are the temples of our lives and the basic source of all our joy.

4. Bless our brains. They enable consciousness and all of our thoughts, talents, and feelings. They let us experience self-awareness and sensations, make right decisions, contribute achievements, and enjoy life, while they coordinate our physical movements and conduct the multitudinous involuntary processes that sustain our lives.

5. Bless our spirits. They constitute our communicative feelings and thoughts and help us have good relationships with ourselves, others, other animals, plants, our inanimate environment, and all of Creation.

6. Bless our love makers, by which I mean our genitals. They let us enjoy sex life, renewing our union in Creation’s most physical way, helping us relax, and, most vital of all, letting us create new life.

7. Bless the other animals and the plants. They’re our animate partners in Paradise.

8. Bless the land, air, water, and all other things. They’re our inanimate partners.

9. Bless our peacekeepers. They help preserve life and our natural Paradise.

10. Bless our natural Paradise. It’s our basic home in the universe and the planet on which Creation has evolved us.

*© 2006 Charles Blaise. Reprinted with permission.

Tom Attea, creator of NewsLaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway and has written comedy for TV. Critics have called his writing “”delightfully funny” and “witty” with “good, genuine laughs.”