Monday Musings, May 5th, 2014

In case you weren’t aware, today is May 5th. Which, I know, pretty obvious, duh, but I’m shining a lightning-bright, LED-style flashlight on that fact for a very good reason: it’s Cinco de Mayo.

Now, fair warning, if you weren’t aware of that before I pointed it out, I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re probably not currently in the United States and/or don’t frequent US drinking establishments.  Because, as I’ve said in the past, here in the US, even if we excel at nothing else as a people, there’s likely not another culture in the world that does quite the bang up of job of appropriating holidays from other countries/cultures and then drowning them in high-proof booze like we do.

St. Patrick’s Day? Check.

Cinco de Mayo? Check

Valentine’s Day? Che—err, wait. Maybe that one’s just wishful thinking on my part.

Regardless, we’ll use just about any excuse to get our drink on, even if it means celebrating the French defeat at the Battle of Puebla.

What we don’t do, on the other hand, is use it as an excuse to eat a bunch of pizza. Granted, it’s about the only thing we don’t use as an excuse to eat a bunch of pizza, but hey, you’ve gotta have some standards, and not ordering pizza to celebrate a mostly Mexican holiday seems like a decent place to draw the line.

Just got an email from Snappy Tomato Pizza suggesting I celebrate Cinco de Mayo with a discounted medium cheese pizza. Um, no. #doingitwrong

— Jason A. Rust (@jasonarust) May 5, 2014

Which brings me the tweet I embedded above.  Yes, I’m serious as a six-year old being handed his/her first library card, I got an email offer this morning suggesting my family observe Cinco de Mayo with a medium cheese pizza for dinner.  As if a medium cheese pizza had any chance of feeding my family anyway, but that’s a different post entirely.

At any rate, if you feel compelled to “celebrate” today with a tequila-based beverage or perhaps some delicious tacos, more power to you. Just maybe keep in mind that, really, being Monday is just as a good as an excuse.

Plus, Monday comes every seven days, which, if I recall correctly, is how often the Surgeon General recommends both of those things*.

Pud’n

*This is patently untrue.  There’s really no such thing. But there ought to be.  Because if everyone consumed tacos and margaritas weekly, at minimum, the world would be a demonstrable better place.