The One that Saved Your Thursday
So, it’s Thursday. So what? Unlike the vast majority of young adults who still identify this late-week workday with the, let’s be real, unrealistic notion of Thirsty Thursdays, I’m not the biggest fan of the day. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, Thursdays lure you to enjoy the comfort and freedom of a Friday but with all the responsibility of real life and a full 48 hours until true emancipation. This very well may have a lot to do with my inability to make good decisions when presented with liquor, fried finger foods and late-night banter, but that’s my problem – and also the reason I have friends.
This hatred of Faux Friday began long ago, though. Long before I knew what the sweet elixirs of awful uninhibited choices, bad jokes and shit-talking tasted like. It started when I was 12 and first navigating the ropes of a full-time student and working actress. I was playing Brigitta (yes, the nine year-old) in a holiday/December/Christmas production of The Sound of Music and pulling double-duty as a 7th grader at Lakeview Middle School. And while it was awesome when I got to leave school to go to matinees and/or get slapped on my ass with a book in FRONT of said school, when the area middle and high schools got all culturized with a field trip at the the-ay-ter – it was NOT so awesome when I just didn’t want to go to school the next day.
Enter Joel L., the absolute love of my pre-teen life, and a kind-hearted, adult actor. One Wednesday evening, when I was particularly bummed about being a normal kid the next day, he said, “Well, tomorrow’s Thursday, which is great. You know about the Thursday Morning Shuffle, right?” Oh ho ho, I hadn’t, but I was all ears. (I mean, If Joel had told me to rub cat shit on my face because it was the cool thing to do, I would’ve actually come in contact with the disgusting animal.) But here he was, with the solution to my mid-week problem. All you had to do was wake up, put on one of your favorite songs, and dance around like an insane person! And, in doing so, you’d ensure that you have the best day ever. Sure enough, I never had a bad Thursday after that.
Here it is, 15 years later, and the phenomenon still works. Don’t get me wrong, I knew, even then, that there’s no way the Thursday Morning Shuffle or its supernatural powers were a real thing, but it being Joel’s theory and me being a star-struck, doe-eyed preteen, I was willing to pretend – and it worked. And it continues to work. Just ask my fiancé who stares at me dubiously as I blast anything from Britney Spears, Cobra Starship or Taio Cruz to The Beatles, Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire or Broadway classics – ask him if I don’t always have a damn good Thursday. Oh, and just because it’s Thursday and I’m in a great mood, it’s not too late to start – give it a whirl tonight and mark your calendars for next week.
Time to go do something I’ll regret tomorrow morning.
