Today happens to be National Dog Day. I like dogs a lot, and have had several of them. Though I don’t currently have any animals, I cared enough about National Dog Day that I posted photos of my two previous dogs, Danny and Mabel, on Facebook. I felt it was my obligation; when it’s National Whatever Day, if it remotely applies to you in any way, it’s really your duty to make some mention of it on social media. Otherwise, you’re a hater – a dog hater, or a cat hater, or a hater of pancakes or a hater of whatever is being celebrated on that day.

But it’s just getting to be too much. Why does every day have to be a special day, honoring something? Are there really 365 separate things that deserve special recognition? You don’t have to answer that; I’ll just tell you – no, there aren’t. Just because some people like lighthouses doesn’t mean there has to be a National Lighthouse Day. But there is – August 7. I missed it, because I didn’t hear about it, but even if I hadn’t heard about it, I wouldn’t have cared. I’m not saying people can’t enjoy lighthouses (I like them), or have lighthouse clubs or whatever – but don’t force your lighthouse worship onto me by creating its own special day and pressuring me to mention it on Facebook.

Not only am I not making up National Lighthouse Day, I’m also not making up National Lemonade Day (Aug 20), National Rice Pudding Day (also known as National Barf Day, August 9), and National Wiggle Your Toes Day (August 6). I found out about all those days by going to Nationaldaycalendar.com, and just looking at the month of August.

I want a day that honors nothing. I want a day that is reserved for no special commemoration, a day that means nothing. I want a day that is set aside to be left alone, so that when the weirdos who keep coming up with these National Days try to register National Orange 5 x 7 Picture Frame Day or something equally meaningful, the person at the National Days Office can say, “Sorry, that’s a blackout date. No inane stupid holidays on that date; we have to draw the line somewhere.”

I’m actually tempted to go ahead and register a day and call it something like National Meaningless Day or National Leave Us Alone Already Day or National Keep Your Interests & Hobbies To Yourself Day. But if I did that, I’d be playing along with the madness, buying into the “national day” craze. And I can’t do it; I WON’T do it. So I’ll do the next best thing, the thing I do pretty much all the time anyway, and that’s to simply ignore all the silly days.

Hey, that could be another good name for the day I’m proposing – National Ignore All the Silly Days Day.