The results of a five-year study on suicide trends have been published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. They indicate people are more likely to commit suicide on Wednesdays than on any other day of the week. The reasons for the popularity of mid-week take-outs remain the subject of speculation. But what really remains to be formulated is a remedy for the rising tide of mid-week suicides. Shoreline Out & About believes a number of common-sensible things can be done to get life and limb over Hump Day:
1. Try using a different calendar. Most of the world uses the Gregorian Calendar. So, while it does have some advantages for keeping things relatively organized and in synch with the folks with whom we interact, it doesn’t present much opportunity for variety, to say nothing of avoiding Wednesdays. The work-week always is preceded by the Sunday Night Dreads. It always begins on Monday. Wednesday always follows Tuesday and precedes Thursday. The routine becomes existentially numbing. And before you can say, “Honey, do I need a permit for this thing?” people are … well … you know. At Shoreline Out & About, each of us uses a different calendar. Because we all use the same clocks, we’re able to maintain some semblance of a daily schedule. But some of us might be celebrating Ground Hog Day the same day others are celebrating Arbor Day or Our Lady of Guadalupe Day. So, we never quite fall into predictable routines. We have an endless variety of things to discuss around the water cooler. And no one has any idea what day of the week it is. As a result, no one’s taken himself out of the gene pool here since Albert Murfwhiffle stuck his head in our new stapler. And he was only trying to demonstrate that was easy.
2. Dress differently from the standard dress code. Before we adopted the multi-calendar approach, some of our folks used to adopt all manner of attire on Wednesdays. Merlene Grimbutz used to dress like a tyrolean barmaid, which certainly made suicide the last thing on the men’s minds. Fred Steubing would typically show up dressed as a hot dog or a can of lunch meat. And Albert Murfwhiffle would arrive in a straitjacket, making Wednesday the one day of the week his wife drove him to work.
3. Swap job responsibilities. This is a never-ending source of mirth and frivolity for us. Perhaps our most successful instance was the day Steve Mildew from IT Operations swapped jobs with Mildred Blitz in Payroll. Somewhere around 10:30 that morning, our entire computer network went down for the day, and everyone received a $5,000 bonus. What a blast. There were some mixed results, however. The good news: after backtracking through the math, we were able to determine that at least twelve babies were conceived that day. The bad news: the paternity-test results were quite disconcerting to many of the pregnant parties’ spouses. Albert Murfwhiffle’s wife gave him the Big Sayonara when he was ordered to pay child support for Myrtle Lilywhite’s twins.
4. Wear boxing gloves. Manual dexterity is like electricity, indoor plumbing, telephone service, and political promise: you never know how much you rely on it until you have to get by without it. Since everyone will be sharing the disadvantage, wearing boxing gloves can be an endless test of resourcefulness, a wonderful team-building exercise, and a welcome source of amusement. There is collective distress: users of computers, smart phones, and PDAs probably suffer most, followed by chronic nose-pickers. And there are individual losses: Albert Murfwhiffle was knocked out by Gladys Peabody in the third round.
5. Communicate with each other using only hand gestures. We tried this just once because we agreed those of Italian descent were at a distinct advantage. The hearing-impaired – or those who’d mastered sign language for other reasons – came in a distant second. Albert Murfwhiffle mistakenly wore boxing gloves that day. But we’re not aware that anyone noted a discernible difference in his ability to make himself understood.
As a last resort – since we share just one human condition, since no problem is unique – maybe we can try talking to each other a bit more. Even if it’s just on Wednesdays, maybe we can try caring about each other a bit more, looking out for each other a bit more, making each other feel a bit less alone in our suffering.
If not, take the day off.
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Great piece Mark!
Aww … you’re a sweet kid, Pam.