Stupid Friday

When I moved out to California to leverage my Physics degree into a career in fast food, I lamented with my roommates that we just weren’t as stupid as we had been in our carefree college days. Back in the good ol’ days, we had thought nothing of the consequences of staying up all night, our eyeballs exploding from the mixture of caffeine and alcohol we ingested, peeing off sheer cliffs of crumbling rock, numbering the stars and toooooasting life, wearing 12-pack cartons as hats.

Now we were living in a city, and many nights we had to keep in mind the r-r-responsibilities of the coming day. Still, reluctant to let go of the golden days of youth, we came up with a plan. A simple, elegant plan called Stupid Friday.

It was a Friday, for instance, when I shaved the top of my head to go with the monk costume I wore to a Halloween party. On another Friday we got several liters of Mountain Dew, went to a local park, and played chip-chip hula hoop tennis ball golf long into the night. (One of our number was a master at building a fun game out of a pile of toys. A recreational MacGyver.)

Stupid Fridays were a resounding success, so it was not long before we expanded the franchise. Dumb Wednesday became a feature of our calendar, and then things really took off:

  • Moronic Monday
  • Futile Tuesday
  • Dumb Wednesday
  • ??? Thursday
  • Stupid Friday

I can’t for the life of me remember what we named Thursday, but it was one of the earlier additions to our calendar, as it was only slightly more stupid than Friday. Dumb Wednesday’s name was inspired at least in part by the movie Big Wednesday, which I remember fondly and wonder now how I’d like it. Futile Tuesday has a nice ring to it, and Moronic Monday is what it is. Maybe another alumnus of the EmmaDome can remember Thursday’s moniker.

I still invoke Stupid Friday now and again, and even Dumb Wednesday. Life is too short to be r-r-responsible all the time.

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7 thoughts on “Stupid Friday

  1. I associate Stupid Friday with the Beer Mile, but that just may be correlation: Friday was the day I was most likely to be there, and we were generally running out of/for beer.

    • Hoo-wee, the beer run. That must have been Bob’s idea.

      The terrain was perfectly configured for agony. A ring of the Party Bell on the coffee table marks your launch. Flying down the hill to the Chevron, scooping up two twelve-packs of Shaeffer ($9.10) and (if the guy rang you up quickly enough) the idea that this might be The Run.

      The first hill back to the house. OK, it’s tough, but making the turn and taking the brief downhill lets you forget that your lungs are starting to burn.

      Then the last hill. It doesn’t seem so far. Up at the EmmaDome people are out on the front lawn cheering you on. But you’ve been the one up there cheering often enough to know that this is where the Beer Run is won or lost.

      You chug, and chug, and the EmmaDome doesn’t seem to be getting closer. Suck it up, Bunky, there’s a thirsty crowd up there. Up, up, up, off the asphalt and over the still-steep lawn, through the door to ring the Party Bell a second time and stop the clock.

      Bob had the best time, the only one ever to break three minutes, but he didn’t wait for the cashier to ring him up.

      I had the worst time, 3:45 if I recall correctly, when I tripped on the first uphill, fell, and one of the 12-packs came open. I had to chase beers rolling back down the hill. I didn’t even notice I was bleeding until after the party bell rang.

      Then there was the time John, pushing an excellent time, bounced off a car in the driveway, staggered through the screen door and threw one 12-pack at the Party Bell (a crafty, veteran move) while he collapsed and waited for his heart to start working correctly again.

      Good times.

      • While it’s true I bounced off a car in the driveway, my legs had gone numb and I was simply falling down. There just happened to be a car in the way, and I used the hip/car impact to catch my balance.

        As long as we limit the records to official residents of the EmmaDome, Bob owns it. But Rob Nollan visited us and accepted the challenge. Son of a track coach and a distance runner to this day, he shattered the record by such a heinous amount my heart was never in beer-runs thereafter. I’m pretty sure Rob broke 2:30 and I can’t imagine him not waiting to be rung up.

  2. The timed beer run was independent of any day of the week, though more likely on Fridays or Saturdays — but I suspect it happened at least once on every day of the week, thanks to the precedent set by Stupid Friday.

    Except… what about Sunday? If you’re trying to set a benchmark for stupidity, what’s stupider than staying up late drinking the night before the work-week starts? I don’t remember a name for Sunday — could we actually have honored the seventh day in an unconscious expression of survival instinct?

    I’d like to think not.

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