from How to Celebrate National Days: Instructions for Enjoying Pseudoholidays

National Pen Pal Day

June 1, 2018

Think back to when you were a kid and you’d give the classroom globe a spin, stop it with your fingertip, and vow to move to whatever loca- tion you landed on. Recall how sometimes you’d hit the ocean and have to spin again. Recall that sometimes you’d hit the ocean twice in a row, and your classmates would chant that your destiny was to die alone at sea. “Die at sea! Die at sea!” they’d chant, and you’d all have a good laugh.

Today, do that, but with people.

Pull out your phone, give your contact list a whirl, and drop your thumb on a random entry. Initiate a correspondence over text with your selected contact. Escalate the frequency and intensity of your communication over the course of the day. Forge a genuine emotional connection. Meet for coffee. Fall in love. Get married. Enjoy a happy life together.

If your first contact does not respond, try another. If neither contact responds, die alone at sea.

National Gingerbread Day

June 5, 2018

Wonder aloud why gingerbread, a food typically associated with the holiday season, has its national day in June.

Consider gingerbread’s growing visibility in popular culture and its numerous strategic partnerships across a variety of industries, including but not limited to beverages, housing, and animated film.

Bake a batch of gingerbread men. Allow them to cool. Decorate them in the traditional manner: icing for eyes and mouths, candies for clothing.

Transport the gingerbread men to a secure location. Divide them into groups, relegating some to poorer living conditions than others, arbitrarily sowing resentment and distrust among their ranks.

Employ enhanced gingerbread-man-interrogation techniques—pro- longed milk dunking, forcible removal of gumdrops, sleep deprivation, etc.—in an e≠ort to uncover the global gingerbread conspiracy. (ProTip: Eating the head is a rookie mistake. Gingerbread men cannot talk if they have no faces.)

Question the morality of your actions. Will the violence you inflict now prevent future violence? Must you become a monster to fight one?

Gaze into the abyss. Wave. Tell it Hi from us.

National Higher Education Day

June 6, 2018

Approach the nearest baby. If you cannot find a baby, make one. Instructions can be found online.

Talk to the baby about the importance of higher education. Show the baby statistics regarding its potential earning power based on education level. Emphasize studies in the STEM categories and suggest that its future will likely depend on its mastery of programming languages and/or similar technical skill sets.

Dismiss the baby’s objections that a higher education is no longer necessary for a lucrative career, particularly in the field of computer engineering. The baby will mention examples like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg.

Laugh at the baby. Point out that though these gentlemen never completed their degrees, they were both students at Harvard. Ask: “Did you get into Harvard, baby?”

The baby will cry. Stupid baby. No wonder it didn’t get into Harvard.

National Best Friends Day

June 8, 2018

Invite all your best gals over for a daylong celebration of drinking, dancing, friendship, and the perfect bank robbery. Stock your home with the essentials—wine, stemware, snacks, walkie-talkies, police scanners, balaclavas, gloves, handguns, ammunition—as well as architectural blueprints of the bank, its underlying utility tunnels, and neighbor- ing buildings. Assign each friend a pseudonym and a specific task in completing the heist. For example, Candace could be “Honey Badger” and run interference on the guards. Emmy could be “Princess Lollipop” and remotely disarm the bank’s security systems. Camilla could be “The Missus” and act as a phony hostage. Have some fun with it!

Anywho, rob the bank. Make your getaway. Abscond to Mongolia. Not only does Mongolia not have an extradition treaty with the United States, but it’s beautiful and exotic, and—bonus points—yurts are to- tally trending right now. We read about them in Goop!

In Mongolia, build an organized-crime syndicate specializing in the tra∞cking of Western consumer technology to the rising Russian and Chinese middle classes. Retire to a yurt-based life of luxury, surrounded by your ultimate besties and miles of gorgeous temperate grassland. See what women can accomplish when they trust and support each other? Best friends forever!

National Handshake Day

June 28, 2018

Today, shake up your handshake routine and experiment with new handshake styles. Ones to try: the Crusher, the Mangler, the Tickler, the Noodle, the Wriggler, the Itchy, the Sweaty.

Insist on shaking the hand of each person you encounter throughout the day, regardless of their relationship to you or the frequency with which you interact. Develop handshake strategies and tactics for any situation. Master the handshake.

Quit your job and become the most celebrated handshake model in stock photography. Let the fame and filthy lucre go to your head. Live in excess.

Years from now, wake in your estate surrounded by objects you don’t love and people you don’t know—all lightly dusted in the popular party drug of the time. Realize that handshakes were meant to connect people but that true human connection has always eluded you. Weep.

Read more from Issue 15.1.