Fear and Loafing on Columbus Day '07

I've never quite understood the theory behind Christopher Columbus. Is he celebrated because he had big enough Mary Kate and Ashley's to ride his ship out onto the not-so-flat sunset? Or, is he celebrated because he brought the VD to indians (feather not dot) and showed the rest of us where to come steal our country?

I'm not against Columbus. I even lived in a quaint little hamlet named after him in Ohio. O.K., so it was spread out like I can't believe it's not better on low lard toast and is the 16th largest city in the country, but you smell what I'm steppin' in.

I'm certainly not against a holiday. However, because Columbus Day is the bastard cousin of President's Day, i.e. it is not publicized in advance and - unless you still use saftey scissors, are a federal employee or work at a bank - it sneaks up on you like a ninja with a butt pinching fetish. It's over almost before you want to make a deposit, need a stamp or want to cut out the turkey you traced off your hand. Trying to accomplish such simple tasks that - on any other day - would be easier than that person everyone but you had, is a maddening experience. Despite the fact that you never give a damn about not being able to dew any of the above mentioned chores on any other day during the year, it's like it grates on your last psychotic nerve when you can't pull them off one Monday per calendar change.

Well, on this Columbus Day I started off stronger than a pure grain flavored Pop-Tart. I dropped off the boy, my car for fixin', got to werk, typed up an invite to my wife's 40th birthday shindig, did some other assorted asundry werkin' before meatin' mi padre for lunch at Los Amigos near Farlem, on the Southside.

Suprisingly, El Channel Ocho - or whatever it were- was not televising any special Columbus Day related programming. I'm always enthralled by the constant smiling and laughing of the los peeples on the shows on Spanish t.v. And then you got the fact that all the wimins seem to have big burrtos. But that's a different boobie, er, uh, I mean story.

Eitherwho, to celebrate the discoverin' of the land that we stole from the indians, all of us seated in booth cinco decided to partake in some - yep, you guessed it - firewater. My dad had some Mexican beer - is there a Mexican swill out there that isn't tasty? - my friend had a margarita and I had some tequila. Unlike most holiday luncheons, there was actually some food consumed. As usual, it was bueno stuffo.

Even when you don't swill it out, werking after lunch on a holiday is a hard nut to shuck. It's after lunch that you really start to ponder Ole C.C. because you're wonderin' why you hadn't thought about not werkin' in his honor earlier? If the federal "gubermint" says he's worthy of not werkin, then who is little ole me to try to thwart the wishes of The Man?

Not unlike other days when I feel like a gubermint employee, I hung around the oraphus for a while, answered a few calls and surfed the intranet. Except, in honor of Ole C.C., I looked at www.historychannel.com.

Didn't Ole C.C. come over on the Nina, Santa Maria and the Patron? I'll have to look into that.

I'm just sayin...