Around this time every year, I always end up asking myself the same question, why can’t the day after Super Bowl be a national holiday?
I know I’m not the only one who thinks this, as nearly seven million Americans annually conjure up the best excuse they can just so they can lay in bed all day in celebration of the biggest sporting event of the year.
As a Packers fan and having one class on Mondays at this time last year, I definitely “called in sick” (Sorry Mom, you didn’t just read that) the day after Jarrett Bush picked off Ben Roethlisberger in the final play of Super Bowl XLV.
However, now that the Giants have won this year and our whole area has apparently caught Giants fever, I think it was worthwhile now, more than ever, that I write this column, because there has to be a day off after the Super Bowl next year.
Belmar attorney Thomas Ehrlich noted in a Google posting that in New Jersey alone this year, there were 96 DWI cases on the day after the Super Bowl reported by the State Police. Ehrlich goes on to say the volume of DWI incidents gets even bigger if you include local arrests, which are presumed to number more than 300.
I know that the people who drive are doing so at their own risk of arrest, but think about the amount of people who could simply stay at a hotel or wherever their party may be, instead of attempting to drive back to their homes, saying, “I can’t stay; I have to be up in the morning for work.”
Americans consume millions of gallons of booze each Super Bowl, leaving mighty hangovers on “Super Mondays.” Can anyone say productivity really rises on days when people are hung over just trying to stay awake, and can barely look at the computer screen?
Even those who refuse to partake in the drinking aspect of Super Bowl festivities will still stay up later that usual just to catch the end of the game.
Again, this is still a choice people who watch the Super Bowl will have to make, but with an estimated 111.3 million people watching Ahmad Bradshaw fall into the end zone this year, that’s a lot of decision making turned one way.
The question is: What day would people choose to give up in exchange for “celebrating” Super Monday?
Would anyone actually care if Columbus Day was taken away and shifted to February to become Super Monday? Workers still get the 10 federal holidays off a year and wouldn’t be forced to give up a day of vacation in the process.
Moving a meaningless holiday like Columbus Day (celebrating a guy who never really discovered the United States and really just got lost, finding a cool place in the process) would allow Americans to move an off-day to a day when the nation could really take full advantage.
Even businesses across the nation would see an increase in sales. This year, Modell’s saw their sales skyrocket based on the Giants’ victory and could do even better the next day, provided the day after the Super Bowl is a federal holiday.
On a totally different point, couldn’t a presidential candidate make this one of his or her issues and grab a large portion of the 111.3 million people who watched the Super Bowl? I will never say that I understand politics and am currently not a registered voter; however, I feel like this is an issue that I could get behind.
Instead of honoring a man who has been completely miswritten by many grammar school history books (Columbus), make the day after the Super Bowl a day not only for adults to recover, but another day for children to honor the freedoms we have as Americans to be able to put on such a worldwide spectacle.
And if you dislike sports (which cannot be many of you because we all know loving sports and being American are one in the same) just claim the day as whatever you want, whether its “Do Some Laundry Day,” “New Years Resolution Catch Up Day,” or my personal favorite: “ I Don’t Have Work, Let Me Sleep In Day.”
-Anthony J. Machcinski
entertainment@theobserver.com
