Happy Tuesday

Become a Paid Supporter Buy me a Coffee Subscribe now I have a pickle problem.Not the kind you're thinking.There is currently a jar in my fridge with one pickle left in it.One.A perfectly good pickle.Floating around in enough brine to support a much larger pickle population.And I won't eat it.I don't know why.I bought the pickles to eat the pickles.I ate all the other pickles.They were good.This one is not a superior pickle.It hasn't achieved anything the others didn't.It didn't graduate at the top of its jar.It's just the last one.And apparently that makes it important.So every time I open the fridge, I see it.Not today.I'm saving it.For what?I have no idea.Pickles are extraordinarily patient.They will wait.They have already accepted circumstances that would psychologically destroy most vegetables.But I'm beginning to think I'm taking advantage of that....I do this with other things.Coffee is probably the worst one.I had a bag of Kicking Horse Three Sisters coffee that I really liked.Good coffee.So naturally...I didn't drink it.Not all of it anyway.I had other coffee around.I could save the good stuff.Except coffee doesn't particularly care about my plans.Once you open a bag, the clock starts ticking.Leave it sitting around long enough and eventually the flavour disappears.Completely.You can grind more.Use twice as much.Try to bully some flavour back into it.Nothing.Coffee has left the building.That's what happened to my Three Sisters.Eventually I went back to the bag.Made a cup.Nothing.Bland.Made another one stronger.Still bland.The coffee was still there.What I had been saving wasn't....Unfortunately, money was tight at the time.There wasn't another bag of coffee coming.So I drank it.All of it.Every bland cup.After a while it started feeling like punishment.Like the coffee and I had entered into some kind of agreement.You did this.Finish it.And I did.Apparently I needed to learn something.I'm not entirely convinced I did....You could probably perform an archaeological survey of my refrigerator and find evidence of the same behaviour.Jars.So many jars.Failed fermentation experiments that I might eat someday.Things I eat quickly.Things I eat slowly.Things I'm saving for reasons that apparently made sense when I put them there.Chili oil is currently becoming a problem.I make my own every couple of weeks.Usually it disappears quickly.Because it's good.But I don't feel like making another batch yet.So now I'm stretching this one.Suddenly every spoonful requires authorization from the Department of Chili Oil Conservation.Does this meal deserve chili oil?Could it survive without it?How much does one egg really need?Yesterday it was chili oil.Today it's the Strategic National Chili Oil Reserve.Nobody touch it....I do this with clothes too.I have nice shirts.Lots of them.I don't wear them.They're not maximum comfort.Maximum comfort is very important when your plans involve sitting around the house writing and occasionally walking to the refrigerator to check whether anything new has appeared since the last time you checked.So the nice shirts wait.For somewhere.Dinner.An event.A date.A meeting.Some hypothetical occasion where somebody apparently needs to see me wearing buttons.And I'm starting to wonder what exactly all this stuff is waiting for.The coffee.The pickle.The shirts.The ingredients.The things we buy because we like them and then somehow become reluctant to use because we like them.We save the good stuff.For the right day....Which brings me to Tuesday.Tuesday has been getting screwed.Think about the days of the week.Monday has branding.Serious branding.We have collectively agreed that Monday is terrible.Nobody even gives Monday a chance.Monday arrives and immediately:Ugh.You again.There are coffee mugs specifically designed to insult Monday.Songs have been written about Monday's deficiencies.Entire motivational industries exist to help people survive it.Monday is famous.For being awful.But famous nonetheless.Friday walks into the room and gets applause for doing absolutely nothing.Friday hasn't accomplished anything.It just happened to arrive five days after Sunday.Yet everybody loves Friday.TGIF.Friday night.Friday feeling.Friday gets celebrated simply for existing.Saturday doesn't even need advertising.Saturday knows exactly what it is.Saturday morning.Saturday night.Saturday plans.Saturday gets both ends.Sunday gets church.Brunch.Football.Family dinner.Rest.Existential dread around six in the evening.Sunday has range.Wednesday gets to announce that we're halfway there.Good for you, Wednesday.Thursday has somehow convinced everybody that it's basically Friday.Clever move.Thursday has been riding Friday's reputation for years.And then there's Tuesday.Tuesday has...Tuesday.Nobody says:THANK GOD IT'S TUESDAY.Nobody talks about Tuesday energy.Nobody wakes up saying:I've got that Tuesday feeling.Tuesday isn't close enough to Friday to lie about it.Tuesday doesn't even get credit for surviving Monday.It just shows up.Hi.It's me again....And yet...about one-seventh of my life is going to happen on a Tuesday.That's a lot of Tuesday.If somebody handed you one-seventh of your entire life, you probably wouldn't say:Eh.Nothing really happens there.But that's basically what we do.Tuesday becomes hallway space between more important rooms.Get through Tuesday.Then Wednesday.Then we're halfway there.Then Thursday.Almost Friday.Almost where?What exactly am I waiting for?Friday?What happens Friday?I'll probably sit around in comfortable clothes then too.Maybe slightly later....I'm starting to feel bad for Tuesday.Because I've spent years treating it like a day that doesn't count.And apparently I've been doing the same thing with a lot of my life.Waiting for the occasion.Waiting for the weekend.Waiting for the vacation.Waiting for company.Waiting for somewhere worth wearing the shirt.Waiting for a meal worthy of the ingredient.Waiting for a morning worthy of the good coffee.Waiting for a sufficiently important moment to use something I already decided was worth having.And while I'm waiting...the coffee goes stale.The shirt sits in the closet.The candle gathers dust.The ingredient expires.The notebook stays blank.And the pickle waits.Pickles are extraordinarily patient.We've established this....Maybe Tuesday needs something.Not a rebrand.Please don't rebrand Tuesday.Somebody will create Tuesday Premium.$8.99 a month.Cancel anytime.I don't want Tuesday to become another Friday either.Tuesday doesn't need plans.It doesn't need reservations.It doesn't need fireworks.It doesn't need us waking up screaming:IT'S TUESDAY!That sounds exhausting.Maybe Tuesday just needs a little appreciation.Something small.Something that says:This day counts too.Maybe Tuesday is the day you eat the last pickle....I can already imagine the conversation.I open the fridge.There's the pickle.Eat it.Not today.I'm saving it for a special occasion.I'm Tuesday.Exactly....Wow.Sorry, Tuesday....Maybe that's what Tuesday has been trying to tell me.It is an occasion.Not a special occasion.An ordinary one.And maybe ordinary occasions deserve some of the good stuff too.Use the chili oil.Open the coffee.Eat the chocolate.Cook the ingredient.Use the nice plate.Write on the first page of the notebook.Not all of it.We're not emptying the refrigerator like civilization ends Wednesday.Just something.One good thing.For Tuesday....And the ridiculous part is...I'm writing this article ahead of time.I'm saving it.For Tuesday.Not necessarily this Tuesday.Apparently I'm waiting for the right Tuesday to come along.Which is an extraordinary thing to do in an article about not saving things for the right occasion.Maybe the correct Tuesday will arrive and solve all my problems.Maybe the weather will be better.Maybe I'll be more organized.Maybe the algorithm will really appreciate Tuesday that week.I don't know.Sorry, Tuesday.I've done it again....Maybe Tuesday doesn't need anything to happen.Maybe that's what I like about it.Tuesday isn't asking me to have fun.It isn't asking me to recover from the weekend.It isn't congratulating me for making it halfway through anything.Tuesday doesn't promise anything.It just quietly hands me another day.Twenty-four hours.No branding.No expectations.No particular reason this one should matter more than another.Here.You get another one.That's actually quite generous....I think I've spent a lot of my life assuming the important parts would announce themselves.Birthdays.Christmas.Vacations.Celebrations.Big accomplishments.Somebody coming over.Something happening.Those days matter.Of course they do.But they're not most of my life.Most of my life looks suspiciously like this.Coffee.Writing.Laundry.Dinner.Comfortable clothes.Opening the refrigerator several times without any clear objective.Tuesday.The ordinary days aren't the space between my life.They're most of it.And one-seventh of them have been quietly going to Tuesday while I barely acknowledged it.One-seventh of a life is not nothing.Maybe I don't need to make those days extraordinary.Maybe I just shouldn't waste them waiting for a more important one....So I think Tuesday gets the pickle.That's Tuesday's thing now.Not literally every Tuesday.I'm not starting a religion.Just the thing you've been saving.The last good pickle.The good coffee.The chocolate.The ingredient.Whatever you've been looking at and thinking:Later.Maybe later is Tuesday.Not because Tuesday earned it.That's the point.You didn't earn Tuesday either.It just arrived.Another ordinary day.Another one-seventh.Another little piece of a life.That's worth something....So this Tuesday...eat the pickle.Use the chili oil.Drink the coffee while it still tastes like something.I might even wear one of the nice shirts around the house....No.That's ridiculous.Tuesday would never ask that of me.Tuesday understands comfort.The pickle is enough.Happy Tuesday. Buy me a Coffee Become a Paid Supporter I think there is a strange comfort in knowing there's still some left.Coffee.Chili oil.The expensive ingredient.The good chocolate.The last pickle.As long as it's still there, I still have it.