Happy Easter everybody! I’m trying to come up with something inspired by the holiday, but I’ve got nothing. I don’t think it’s my fault. I think it’s Easter’s fault. Seriously, what self-respecting holiday chooses to be celebrated on a Sunday? That’s already a day off. What’s wrong with Monday? Or Tuesday? No, you wouldn’t want everybody to have an extra vacation day. Thanks for nothing, Easter.
“But Rob,” I can just hear Easter protesting, “What about Holy Week? What about Good Friday? Holy Thursday? Spy Wednesday? Holy Tuesday?” Shut up Easter, you know as well as I do that none of those count as real holidays, not outside of Catholic school, not according to my bosses anyway, nor most employers around the country. Certainly the federal government doesn’t grant any time off for Holy Week, so I’m saying nice try.
Come on. No gifts? Candy? Please, that’s not a present, that’s a reward for having to spend the whole day grocery shopping with your mom. She buys you some candy for being well behaved, or as close to well behaved as you can manage, trying not to get all excited, whining, antsy just thinking about that candy by the check out, maybe some Twizzlers, a Twix bar.
Peeps? That’s not a candy. It’s a marshmallow. And a poor excuse for a marshmallow at that. I swear, I’ve been chewing on the same Peep for the better part of five years now. I have to take it out of my mouth obviously, you know to go to work and stuff, to brush my teeth, but I will not be outsmarted by a baby-chicken-shaped seasonal piece of postwar confectionary culture.
“Oh Rob! Stop being so contrary! Easter candy is delicious! Like those Cadbury eggs, you know not the big gross ones filled with that inedible goo, but the mini-eggs, the chocolate ones that come in the purple bag! Those are delicious!” Yes, fine, those are delicious. But what is it, really? It’s an oval piece of chocolate covered in hard sugar. That’s it! That’s not that special. Is that the best you can do Easter?
One time when we were all little kids my family won a fifty-pound solid chocolate Easter bunny from some bakery in town. Technically, my brother Kevin was the winner, but not really. Ever since Kevin won a pretty sizeable jackpot at the races a few summers before (don’t ask) my parents decided that he was the “luckiest” child. Which is not true at all. I’m the luckiest! Me! My parents were amused at seeing me react with such insane jealousy that the lucky moniker stuck. I think I was with my mom when she filled out the raffle at that bakery: “Let me put down Kevin’s name. He’s the lucky one!”
I’m the lucky one! Anyway, a few weeks later:
Ring! Ring!
“Hello, is Kevin there?”
“Who’s calling please?”
“Itgen’s Bakery.”
“Hold on.”
“Kevin!’
“What?”
“Phone!”
“Hello?”
“Kevin?”
“Yes?”
“When do you want to pick up your giant chocolate bunny?”
“Mom! Mom! Mo-om!”
What a scam. I couldn’t imagine a giant chocolate bunny would actually make Easter worse, but it did, because the Easter bunny must have thought, well, those kids sure have a lot of chocolate already, I might as well skimp on the Easter baskets and just put out a supplemental bowl of jelly beans. That’s more than enough, really.
And then all of our cousins came over and my mom started hacking away at the chocolate, giant chunks of it everywhere. “Please!” my mom was telling everybody, “Take some chocolate home. Get this stuff out of my house!”
And I was like, “What? No way! That’s our chocolate!” and I put up a big baby tantrum, and everybody was fighting, all while my brother Kevin shouted in the background, “It’s not your chocolate it’s my chocolate!” and I’d be like, “Shut up Kevin! I’ll eat all of that chocolate right now!”
“Mo-o-o-om!”
What a bust. Even after my cousins stole the majority to bring back to their houses, there was still way, like way too much chocolate for any of us to know what to do with. After a week it started developing a white filmy layer on top. It was gross in the same way Halloween candy gets gross by December. Fucking Itgen’s. Fucking Kevin. Fucking Easter.
Now I’m an adult, and all Easter does is rob a day off and turn it into a non-day off. I guess. Not really. I work Sunday nights anyway, waiting tables. I tried to get off but I knew that was never going to happen. Who wants to work on Easter Sunday? Who wants to work any Sunday? Sunday is the craziest day at any restaurant. It’s a day for crazy people to go out to eat. Easter Sunday? Even crazier people. Maybe I’ll be in a really bad mood all night. Maybe I’ll get fired. Fucking Easter.