Note: I realize I just posted this thing last year, breaking my own general rule about not re-sharing a piece for at least two years, but it IS May Day. And I don’t have anything else prepared so, yep, we’re going with it…
10 Random and Absurd Things to Do That Will Make Your May Day Celebration More Festive
This little holiday doesn’t have quite as much going for it, unlike the flashier Thanksgiving and Christmas spectaculars, filled as they are with rituals like massive feasts and drunken relatives bickering over stupid things. Basically, May Day involves flowers and people prancing around a stripper pole. That’s about it. So, let’s jazz things up with some new traditions, shall we?
Prepare Your Dwelling
1. Throw away the left-over Easter Eggs that have been dripping radiation in the back of the fridge for too long now. Those things were really cute at one time but, just like children, they turn bad before you know it. And it doesn’t matter that these were Little Jimmy’s first Easter Eggs and parting will be such sweet sorrow. Jimmy has already forgotten about them and moved on. He is now more invested in obtaining security clearance to those damn locked cabinets in the kitchen which tempt him with their forbidden treasures.
2. Finally put the Christmas tree box back up in the attic. Granted, you may have been using it as a handy folding table for the laundry, but that job activity is not part of the tree’s union contract, and he’s about to file a grievance. The last thing you need right now is a labor dispute when you are trying to make flowery headdresses for your 27 nieces, a gaggle of girls that are living proof that your brother clearly needs to find something else to do with his penis.
3. Force yourself to have the dreaded talk with the relative who was been “staying over for a few days” for at least a month. Explain to this person, the one you essentially stopped loving on Day 6 of the visit and simply couldn’t stand by Day 9, that May Day is the International Day of Moving on Down the Highway. (“Doesn’t that sound like fun? I’ll help you pack!”)
If the relative proves even more slothful than expected and does not immediately leave on a jet plane, tell the rest of the May Day story, which involves May 2, otherwise known as May Dead. This is the International Day where people who actually pay the bills in a dwelling are allowed to hunt down those who don’t, and nobody asks questions about bodies that might be discovered in alleys on May 3rd.
4. Beautify the world by running down to Lowe’s and buying a bunch of those sad little dollar plants left on the orphan rack after gardeners who really know what they are doing have picked through everything. Take them home and shove them in something, maybe the cute planter on the patio that looks just like a giant coffee cup, that thing you had to have back in 1983 and then promptly forgot about. If really invested, you might actually mow the lawn, but everyone will understand if you’d rather watch Ellen.
On the Big Day, Plan Exciting Activities That Will Entertain All Maturity Levels
5. Make sure that your maypole is the most obnoxious and borderline obscene-looking thing that you can find. After all, back in the day before the Christians came along and redesigned history with their stone tablets and burning bushes, May Day had something to do with fertility. (Ask your assembly-line brother, he’ll know about that.)
The little kids won’t get it, unless they’ve been watching HBO after you go to bed. But there will certainly be that unruly pack of twenty-something males that always stands off to one side, drinking beer, normally too cool to be at a party with flowers but forced to make an appearance or they risk disinheritance by Great Aunt Cleo. Ogling the giant tribute to their own anatomy will keep them occupied for hours.
6. Spike the lemonade. Just do it and don’t look back.
7. When all the little girls gather around the maypole, daintily clutching the long ribbons and trying to avoid the birds that keep pecking at their flower-laden heads, walk up and whisper to them a little secret. If they run really, really fast, fast like Momma just found out what actually happened to the fancy crystal vase in the formal dining room, they will actually be able to fly. Like an airplane. And then they can wear cute skirts and serve peanuts. So run with the wind!
Now, just stand back and watch the Himalaya-on-acid developments, with projectile children sailing through the air and your neighbors holding up ranking cards based on style, execution and landing distance. If any of the little Amelia Earharts call you out as the inspiration for the Lucy in the Sky Without Diamonds business, simply point at the empty candy wrappers littering the patio and shrug your shoulders. Sugar is the devil’s work, yes?
8. If you decide that you need to burn something, another ancient tradition that was kind of down-lowed by the Puritans (unless it involved witches), go right ahead. There’s something very cleansing about destruction and rebirth, especially if you’ve had enough of the lemonade. It is generally advised that one should burn things and not people, but a good host will always let the guests decide. Take a vote and see what happens. As a safer alternative, perhaps everyone should just hold their lighters to the sky while someone plays “Freedbird” on their iPad.
When It’s Time for People to Go Home, They Need to Git. Two options:
9. Walk out onto the patio, completely naked. Most of your relatives will realize that they really shouldn’t be seeing this and begin gathering their things, unless those relatives happen to be from East Texas, parts of Arkansas, or also watch HBO after midnight. To motivate your friends that don’t qualify for the incest category, hold up a cattle prod and wave it menacingly. This should nicely resolve things in an expedient manner, with car doors soon slamming. (Unless the non-relatives are from West Texas, parts of Louisiana, or raise livestock.)
10. If some people still insist on hanging around despite your personal free-birding, you may have to resort to tranquilizer darts. This may sound a bit harsh, but there’s only so much one can take when obnoxious fools do not understand that their entertainment value has faded. Of course, some folks may be so inebriated at this point that a projectile sedative might actually perk them up a bit, leading to increased mayhem and personal regret. (All exit plans have a downside.) This could turn out to be a very long night, especially if someone finds a dusty brochure on what really happened with all that May Day fertility stuff back in the day once the moon came out and the cows were asleep.
Just make another batch of spiked lemonade, find a comfortable chair, make sure your insurance premiums have been paid, enjoy the show, and wait for somebody to write a blog post about what happened…
As mentioned, previously published. Tiny changes made for this lazy bit of recycling.
Categories: Humor
Bonnywood Manor 
An enjoyable bit of recycling. 🙂 And since my brain has been working overtime for the last six weeks (or that’s my excuse), I only have a vestigial memory of having read it before. 😉
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well, good, then. My nefarious subterfuge worked out rather well… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m really enjoying your Corona Chronologies!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, Dave! Just trying to keep us occupied during all this mess…
LikeLiked by 2 people
I love that you are!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad someone besides me understands both May Day and the use of tranquilizer darts🙌
I’ve got my lighter ready, play Freebird already!🤗🥰
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s always a good idea to know exactly how to incapacitate anyone around you in any given room.
Cueing up The Bird on my ancient iPod…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like the idea of tranquilizer darts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Life’s too short to waste it on annoying people… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I shall not be freebirding on my deck anytime soon…. but you do make me wish I had a stripper pole and ribbon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sure I’ve got one around here somewhere. I’ll send it to you…
LikeLike
“But just like children, they turn bad before you know it.” Bwahahahaha! Ain’t that the truth! I got burned on that whole children deal four times. Not over it yet. Very tired. Very angry. Should have carried a sharp knife to cut off anything remotely resembling a penis…but…too late. Sigh.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This just goes to show that, no matter how hard you try, some people just can’t be fixed. And others SHOULD have been a long time ago… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
How true. I used to tell my children that I spent my youth raising them, spilled my blood caring for them and worked my fingers to the bone for them.
What’d I get?
Old age, anemia and bony fingers!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I missed this somehow. Where was I? Probably trying to convince my neighbors that the Maypole wasn’t a sign that I’d trotted over to ‘the dark side’ – where folks are having more fun and have opened the gates on their tightly closed minds. I have a sibling who sired four daughters. No sons. The other sibling sired three sons and one daughter (sometimes life just ain’t fair). The daughter festooned brother would borrow a nephew now and then just to add a drop of much needed testosterone to his own environs. The nephews never complained, all them cousins get along jest fine. Or did. Everyone is now ‘mature’ (yeah, yeah. Hit 45 and talk to me then. Thirty doesn’t qualify anybody as mature. In my opinion). None of the males are married (one of them is far too young – 19 and NOBODY should be married at 19. Divorce and/or life-long regret will ensue), but his brothers show no signs of settlin’ down, which is almost a mortal sin in Utah where the fillies outnumber the stallions 10 to 1. One of the stallions is sorta short and he blames that as to why he hasn’t lassoed hisself a wife. I say it’s because he takes after his auntie and has run off the religious reservation like his pants were on fire (which they just might be). Most fillies up here want a stallion that follows the rules of the LORD (amen). Okay. Enough of the cutesy ‘Utah speak’ (and you started it with your reference to rural places of the Texas and/or Oklahoma kind). I never begatted (whoops one more snuck in. You know what it’s like. You start talkin’ like that and pretty soon it’s like eating one potato chip. Nigh impossible). 😆 and I ain’t regretted my non-parental status much at all. Also being the ‘crazy auntie’ it’s rare that folks come and linger long after their used by date has expired. But I’m known to free bird it (sans the whole penis thing obviously). I try to keep my blinds shut and exposure to the world at large minimized, but I suspect some people have seen more than they should when I go on a bender of the nature worshipping kind. Maybe that’s why nobody comes to stay? Hmmm. Might start a thing with that suggestion Brian, EVERYONE has clueless and nervy (not nervous, full of NERVE – as in ‘I’m glad I ain’t got your nerve in my tooth!’ sort of way) relatives and friends. Maybe taking to walking around nekkid is the key to getting rid of them. You really should patent that idea friend! 😆
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hoo boy, that right there was a whole mess a talkin’, it was. Ain’t got no idear where to start with my answerin’, but I’m gonna give it a run, sure am. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with havin’ a maypole, less you talkin’ ’bout havin’ MayPole Smudgepot, that trashy woman livin’ down by the creek. She done tied her tether to way too many hitchin’ posts, if you catch my drift, so her feedbag is bound to have some mold on it. Why, just the other night, over to the barn dance, she done danced with SEVEN different men (all from the same family, natch, cuz that kinda mess happens around her) and every dang one a those boys had that kinda smile tells you he done got his iron branded by that Smudgepot woman, least at some point. The very next day, she up there singin’ in the church choir about salvation when everbody knows it’s a miracle she can even stand up.
Dang. I forgot what my point was. That happens on the second jar of moonshine, sometimes. Gimme a second, it’ll come to me…
LikeLike
I, too, am enamored of your Corona posts. Recycled or not, they are welcome.
As for the spiked lemonade, what is the preferred liquor of choice, hmm?…
Is it whiskey?.. *slurp*… uh, no…
Vodka?… *slurp*… okay, but meh…
Gin?… *guzzle*… oh dear, that’s a hard no…
Tequila? … *pours it down*… Ah, yes, now we have it! Yaaay,
*slumps to floor*
LikeLiked by 1 person
I must tip my hat to your brave tippling research. Steadfast scholastics in times of crisis should always be honored. Thank you for your service.
Now, if I’m to be truthful, I think your second hypothesis is worthy of more scrutiny, although not with traditional non-flavored vodka. I find that fresh lemonade combined with a flavored vodka, such as raspberry or cranberry, is quite scrumptious.
But I don’t mean to malign non-flavored vodka. A lovely suggestion for the upcoming summer months? Track down a bottle of Langers Cucumber Lime with Mint fruit juice and splash a bit of untainted vodka in THAT mess. It’s perfect on a patio when the sun is strong….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! This article just blew my mind. Such an amazing read.Thank you for the value offered here:-)
LikeLiked by 1 person