Sunday, November 23, 2008

Sunday the Non-day

I hate Sunday’s; they’re like the non-weekend-day. They’re a day off but only just, shallowly masquerading as the “day before work”, (or school). My hate of Sunday’s started when I was around 11. Saturday mornings on TV in the UK is all kid’s shows; it’s probably similar in the states. I’d get up at 7am and stuff myself stupid with multiple bowls of cereal while watching cartoons and inane kids shows, written by adults trying to be kids. Saturday mornings were the start of the weekend and boy, you knew it had at 7am! The parents would lie-in, no-one to annoy me, (except for my younger sister), then when it was all over around 12pm you’d run outside and act out all the shows you just saw with your friends for another 3 hours.

Did my life revolve around TV? You bet-cha! But Sunday was a day-of-death TV wise. In the UK, a lot of day goes to religious shows like “Songs of Praise”. Quite literally, they take TV cameras around different protestant churches and film people singing hymns for a couple of hours. What the hell is that? It’s not even a religious cartoon. Then in the afternoon they’d show a lot of political shows analyzing the past week’s news. So TV on Sunday was out, it was so depressing for an 11 year old. Some of my friends went to church on Sunday; not that it’s called “church” like it is in the states, most people say “services”, “we’re going to the service”. Was that something to do with plumbing or washing machines?

Then one Sunday when I was 12 my mum told me something astounding; my favorite uncle would probably die soon. I didn’t even know he was in the movies! At that age people used to talk about death and I’d say, “like in the movies”, “yes, that’s right son, like in the movies”. I’d think back to Saturday afternoon war movies or westerns where actors would die. Then of course, the next week I’d see the same people in different movies. So death you see was a pretend thing, just like when we played army in the school playground. “Rat, tat, tat, you’re dead!”. Then you’d act out an elaborate death complete with leg twitches and everything – “That was off that movie the guns of macaroni!”.But no, apparently death wasn’t like that it was real and final and people didn’t come back. Sunday became death day after that. For years, up into my late teens every Sunday I’d think about my uncle dying. No TV, death is real, everyone’s going to die, my uncle first, school the next day. Sunday was a horrible day. He didn’t die for years afterwards btw – my uncle I mean.

Fast-forward to today. It’s Sunday again and even though I’ve got over all of that childish stuff now, it’s still a depressing day. The funniest thing is thinking back to Friday. On Friday you’re happy because you get two days off, but then on Saturday night I feel my weekend is over. Tomorrow is Sunday, the non-day before I go back to work.

Feeling depressed now? Good, I hate you all. I’m off to eat cereal.

1 comment:

Sara said...

I, too, hate Sundays. I think it's mostly because on Saturday I laze around and don't do any housework or chores. It's my day-off and I try to be as lazy as possible: stay in my jammies, don't shower, sit on the couch and play XBOX360, etc.

Sunday is CHORE day. Ugh. Do laundry, clean the cat litter box, clean house, and generally prepare for Monday to come along. I deifinitely hate Sundays.