The National Football League (NFL), with its massive influence and relentless quest for more programming, has petitioned to add an eighth day to the week.
It would be sandwiched between Friday and Saturday and called Nutherday.
As in Nutherday to watch football.
Unsurprisingly, this has stoked a heated debate. Astronomers who appreciate the connection between the common calendar and the 29.5-day lunar cycle, which takes about 7.4 days, argue that it would undermine a fundamental appreciation of science.
The Earth-is-flat folks, of whom there are many more than you might imagine, suggest that adding an eighth day would be a blatant attempt to give the sun extra time to melt the rim of ice encircling the planet, which holds the oceans in place. (The prospect of which has them running to Costco to buy floaties for their kids just in case.)
Astrologers lament that a Nutherday would totally disrupt their cosmic cycle, which harmonizes the universe’s natural flow. Though they do readily admit that while Tuesday is ruled by Mars, Wednesday by Mercury, and so forth, assigning Nutherday to Uranus, the ruling planet of big-butted, beefy linebackers, could be a boon for business.
(Juvenile joke? Guilty as charged.)
And a small but influential Super PAC called DrudgeAmerica is taking the opposite tack, suggesting that Tuesday should be eliminated altogether for being too soft on workers, and is pushing for a 48-hour Monday instead, which they’d rebrand as Sufferday, and make so intolerable that hump day would be even humpier than before, though it would now fall on a Thursday.
Noticeably absent from the conversation: retirees.
But it is the fans of Fridays who have truly lost their shit over the idea, and not just those who lust after fries, the likes of whom I recently wrote about.
They rue the day when they can’t robotically sign off every Friday email with “Have a nice weekend! 😀.” Without that option, they’d be paralyzed, stifled, grossly uncomfortable. “Have a great Nutherday!” simply won’t do.
But more ominously, as they’ve become smitten with the idea of Fridays having become an official work-from-home day, a half-day for some, and the official “I made it to the end of the week” day (a.k.a. TGIF), they fear that their already tenuous relationship with work could become unsustainable.
This fear is not entirely unwarranted. A recent Gallup poll reported that 85% of the global workforce is either actively disengaged, checked out or unhappy at work. For context, this is even higher than the YouGov poll that found 80% of everyone dislikes Diddy.
Without the anticipation of Fridays, they argue, which provides the dopamine rush they need to survive the week (a phenomenon supported by research), they might actually have to look for a job they might like, which is a daunting prospect and easier said than done.
The NFL counters that, if a Nutherday was actually the start of a three-day weekend in disguise, Friday would maintain its prominent role and improve productivity and overall happiness. The partners of football fans who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the game but are forced to endure it ad nauseam have only one thing to say: “Have mercy on us!”
Here’s where I come down on this matter. We don’t need another day; in fact, we don’t need any days.
The seven-day week itself was a man-made concoction conjured up by the Babylonians, who believed the number seven was magical, particularly among those who were compulsive gamblers, which, it turns out, was the vast majority of them. Or they were simply tired of being called babies.
Later on, the Emperor Constantine codified the seven-day week in the Roman calendar to appease growing unrest among the religious faithful keen on observing a Sabbath. It should be noted, however, that the Romans had traditionally followed an eight-day market week, which is something the NFL’s lawyers are touting in defense of its plan. “Why can’t God rest on the eighth day?” they have been rumored to ask, “While watching football, of course.”
Since then, the French tried out a ten-day week during their Revolution, which proved about as successful as cooking without butter.
The Soviets attempted a five-day week in 1929 to dismantle traditional religion and boost factory productivity. That also failed spectacularly when its population decided that, with two fewer days in the week, it had to consume four times the Vodka on the days that remained.
And in an unreported experiment, the town of Truth or Consequences in New Mexico, noted for having one of the lowest-performing math districts in the country, tried to institute a 6.35-day workweek in hopes of forcing its residents to learn simple calculations. That, too, failed spectacularly when nobody showed up for school or work because they couldn’t figure out which day of the week it was.
So, clearly, the challenges of work-life balance, mathematical skills, religiosity, and, of course, football, all point in only one direction: eliminate days of the week altogether. Keep the months, but lose the days.
Because each day would have a number but no day label, we’d start by making the typical calendar round so that your brain doesn’t automatically associate a specific day of the week with where it falls on the grid.
You’d decide which days to get your work done. Which days to finish your yard project. Which days to eat out, go to church or the temple, or splurge on a trip to Disney World with the kids, leaving you wishing you could be back in the calm and comfort of your office on Monday.
And there could be NFL football on in your house virtually any day, except on those with college games or during a catastrophic power grid failure. So everyone wins, except those who crave structure, social synchronization, predictability, guardrails, repetition and routine.
Which, if we’re honest about it, is just about everyone.
So I guess the traditional seven-day week is here to stay, at least for now. The NFL will have to wait another day for a Nutherday.
In the meantime, let’s get rid of Daylight Saving Time. We’ve saved enough.
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