Defending Tuesday

By Nate Adams
Collegian Editor
October 3, 2007

You may not know this, but without Tuesday, you would be dead. Every week, the second (or third, depending on your disposition) day of the week comes and goes with little fanfare. Little do people know that these forgotten 24 hours might be the most important of the week.

Everyone hates Monday for all the sobering responsibilities it brings in stark juxtaposition to weekend memories. Wednesday is hump day, the perfect balance between responsibility and free spiritedness; it’s too soon to rock out, but not too soon to think about rocking out. Thursday is that little brother who tags along, admiring his senior and idolizing his behaviors. That’s why some people use Thursday as a preamble to the recklessness of the weekend.

Friday and Saturday, well, we all know what happens then. Caution gets thrown to the wind and duties to God and country get abandoned for 48 hours as the people of the world become lost boys, at least for a little while. When the sun sets on the misbehavior of Saturday, Sunday comes in like a lamb to nurse us back to health. Sober and soft, Sunday is a day to atone for weekend transgression and to catch up on what was put off.

But what of Tuesday? Where does this forgotten middle child fit into the seven day rotation? With no stigma attached to it, no duty that demands to be filled, why is it so important? It is that very question that makes Tuesday so indispensable.

Every day of the week demands something. Monday demands rigid attention. Wednesday demands duality. Thursday, Friday and Saturday demand immaturity. Sunday demands slow compassion. But Tuesday? Tuesday demands nothing. The weekend is too far gone to reminisce about and too far ahead to drift to. The merciless hassle of Monday is over, and the sobering effects of Sunday are long gone. If ever there was a day to put down all the burdens of modern life and focus on simply being, Tuesday is it. It is a day to collect thoughts, call loved ones and simply enjoy the fragile majesty that is day-to-day existence. Without Tuesday, the suicide rate in this country would skyrocket. Life would be a stressful, decadent parade. Nothing at all would sustain mankind. It would be an endless cycle of nonstop hedonism blended with intense work. We’d burn out as a civilization in less than 50 years. No one can maintain that level of drive for long without a complete mental breakdown.

And so, because it demands nothing and gives nothing back in return, Tuesday allows people to simply be with themselves, lost in their own thoughts. With every other day of the week ripe with demands and expectations, let Tuesday remain a day lost in transition; a 24 hour vacation from the rest of the week, hectic and oppressive.

adamsn1@lasalle.edu