Ever notice how, about this time every year, you see calendars on sale in bookstores for about 50-100% off the normal price? There is no other discount like it with respect to how steep the drop becomes and for predicting when it will occur. Yet this happens every year. As if perfectly planned in some other more attractive calendar.
But what happens to all of the misfit calendars that don't get sold despite all the discounts/free offers? The cuddly cat collection, or wild Midwest stallions, or uplifting hot air balloon showcases? Do they just get dumped in a back alley, there to be stumbled upon by a disorganized bum to begin his previously unscheduled tale of getting his life back on track?
I would hope that the rejects would get donated to a good cause. Like to a hospital, so patients can stare at something other than the safe hand washing procedure taped to the wall. Or perhaps to a biker bar, in the back room, for practice taking out a cuter being's eyes with a dart, or for just randomly selecting the day to take out somebody's eye with a dart (works well in both capacities). Perhaps all of the rejects should get shipped back on a pallet and placed on the publisher's desk, for a more tangible indication of the excess supply of adorable or muscle cars ordered this year. Then rightly pitched in the back alley.
The calendar business certainly is a racket. You can't reuse the one from the previous year unless it is either free of markings (or can be wiped clean) and if the daily dates don't correspond to any particular weekday. But then it is just a list of numbers on a wipe board, and that isn't much use. So, given this dilemma, everyone is forced to procure a new 12-pack of rolling Irish hills scenes every year. Then slowly watch the next year waste away without ever getting any closer to the Emerald Isle.
There are a couple ways to put an end to this waste. One, just don't print the year on the calendar. Who actually ever looks at a calendar to find out what year it is? Or to find out what next year is? If they did this, there would eventually come a time when the numerical days align with the weekdays again. It could be a few years down the road, but at least there would come another time when the dates match. Hell, for allure, even take the unused ones at the end of a given season and actually store them somewhere exotic, like in a winery for years to come. Then when they are resurfaced for resale, they can be marked up since they would have aged alongside vintage pinot. The wine business should start doing this anyway, since it sounds kind of like a cool way of linking two different years to determine the age of a fine wine.
The second, less logical but more attractive approach, would be just to start every year on the same weekday, say Friday since that one is the best (it's not TGI Wednesday, is it?). Then after 365 days and ending on a Friday (or Saturday on leap years), the Friday would repeat to start the next year. New Year's would then always fall on a Friday, allowing 2 days for recovery before starting the next work week. It would be a little tricky at first to get used to, but at least you would always know what day of the week your birthday fell, or your anniversary, or Thanksgiving.
HOWEVER, if you are a thrifty consumer and you can get by with little or no planning for the first month of the year, your best bet is simply to wait out the Christmas sales and jump on these 99% markdowns this time of year. Unfortunately, as if planned by the publishers on their crisp lighthouse of the month wall adornment, most calendars do not include the January of the following year, quick to terminate the date tracking so as to ensure continued on-time, full price purchases around the holiday season. Some daily planners even make a point to remind you to buy the next edition, aptly situating an extra sheet or a note towards the end of the fall season.
No, grandma, what I would like from you next year is not the page-a-day look at wolves in the Alaskan wilderness, along with either the yearlong lack of interest as it sits on my desk or the guilt of throwing away the $12.99. Instead, just print me out an 8.5 x 11 sheet with January's dates (and my cousin's birthdays) marked, a note to hit the bookstores on January 28th, and $3. Then I can stay rightly organized up until I can score a good deal on an Eiffel Tower calendar of my own choice. Plus keep it out of the hands of the bums and intensive care patients who would probably just get frustrated by not making any daily progress anyway.
