Won't get fooled again?

By: 
Rob Maharry

There are entirely too many holidays in America. A cursory search of Facebook on any given day will reveal that it’s “National Sibling’s Day,” “National Dog Day,” “National Tequila Day” or “National Drink Tequila with Your Dog Who You Basically Consider a Sibling Day.” I get exhausted just thinking about all of the celebrating.
 
Through the years, though, some of these days have inexplicably stuck around and become ingrained in our culture: Groundhog’s Day, which, save for being the title of an excellent Bill Murray movie, is about as pointless as it gets; St. Patrick’s Day, or everyone’s favorite day to tout the fact that they’re 1/64th Irish and drink Bud Light with green food coloring in it; Cinco de Mayo, which I’ve been told people in Mexico don’t actually celebrate and equates to the holiday version of Taco Bell; and of course, April Fool’s Day.
           
I can still remember reaching for an Oreo as a child, hungry in the middle of the afternoon after a day at the park with my family, only to taste the tart filling of Crest toothpaste between my cookies. It was disgusting and scarring; I wasn’t sure that I’d ever recover. Whom could I trust? I hated the holiday then, and I still hate it now. April Fool’s is dumb.
           
Nowadays, the pranks have changed, but they’re equally predictable: fake pregnancy announcements, fake personal tragedies or firings from jobs, athletes tweeting that they’re leaving their teams, Google apparently adding a feature to Gmail that got some guy fired and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign still being a real, legitimate thing. Sigh.
 
Read more in this week's Grundy Register. 

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