Shallow Be My Name

Lots of people say they learn something new everyday. If I have to be honest with myself (which btw, is my preference) I would have to admit that I don’t always, but I did today. Apparently yesterday was not just another day. Yesterday was World Introvert Day. Honestly, up until a few hours ago I had no idea there was one. Or, for that matter, an organization that helps all of us to better understand this apparently most oft, misunderstood minority. According to this group, who I am assuming is made up primarily of the aforesaid personality type, they are often mistakenly viewed by others as “arrogant and strange” which could not be further from the truth although, as they go on to say, the majority of introverts are in fact, gifted. I suppose, this is as good a reason as any to allocate them one out of 365 days to call their own. And January 2 seems to be quite an appropriate day to dedicate to this group. After all, I imagine that most of the introverts have struggled a little over the past few weeks, what with all of the hoopla surrounding the holiday season. Not to mention the hugging that has become so  commonplace during these types of celebrations. So why not give these people a day to revel in their own self worth? Who’s the worse for that?

But, that’s not all that I’ve learned lately. Little did I know that December 21 was National Short Girl Appreciation Day, a day I can get my head around unlike National Hug a Short Person Day which, as you can well imagine, is a day that I plan to stay out of the reach of, well just about everybody. The thing is, if people want to appreciate me simply because I am short, I can get on board with that. And, according to the rules of the day, I qualify even though, and I say this at the risk of losing my status, I’ve never really thought of myself as being short. You see, the way I figure it size is what you make of it. I can still recall the time that I met someone I had previously only encountered on the phone. Having had several conversations, we eventually got together and, as she walked in the door, with nary a glance around the room, she quite surprisingly exclaimed “I thought you would be taller”. Which puzzled me because who ever knew that a voice could be “tall”. And what if she had thought my voice sounded “short”? Would she have come in and said “I thought you would be shorter?” See what I mean? It’s all relative. Nonetheless, I did think it was a little bit of genius to dedicate the shortest day of the year to short people. Which, as these things almost always seem to do, got me thinking. If there was, and I’m not saying there should be, a National Shallow Person’s Day, what day would that be?

So right off the bat there are dates that simply have to be eliminated. Like January 15, or any day thereabouts lest by some unfortunate accident we were to overlap with Martin Luther King Day, a day that even a shallow person would not want to usurp. For that matter, anything close to Labour Day, President’s Day, the Queen’s birthday, Christmas and all other religious holidays, are off the table, mostly for obvious reasons that I shouldn’t have to explain here. I did give some consideration to the “Hallmark Card” days (well that’s what we call them in our house) like Mother’s and Father’s Day, Valentine’s and Halloween, the latter being a real contender until I realized there could be some expectation around costuming for the occasion.  The funny thing though was, the more I thought about the best choice of a day, the less able I was able to come up with anything remotely as clever as the ones I had just learned about.

And that’s when it happened. That’s when I realized that shallow people don’t succumb to convention. We’re not slaves to the calendar. No one can tell us which day should be ours and which day shouldn’t be. Afterall, we’re shallow. Isn’t life really mostly about us? So here’s what I say. Go ahead and pick your day. Any day you want, barring the ones mentioned above of course to avoid casting any sort of shadow on our kind. Own it. Make it yours. You deserve a day of your own. As a matter of fact, I’m making tomorrow my very own National Shallow Person’s Day. So, go ahead. Wish me a happy one. And I’ll be sure to wish you one too, if you tell me when it is of course.