Closed for the holiday

Doesn’t anything close anymore? Are we so service oriented that there is no time off?

It’s not just about people not working on a holiday (they might be glad to: extra pay, not their holiday, maybe not much family to celebrate with, etc.), it’s about not having access to everything all the time. Oops, we need milk. If we knew things would be closed, we would have planned ahead. It’s not that hard.

It’s not about religion. It’s not about Sunday being a time for religion. It’s about down time. It’s about a time when we’re not supposed to work, not allowed to do too much, aha, maybe it’s this: where it’s acceptable to not work, to not need to do this or that, to not need to go to the store.

Does this happen when you get older? Is that it? Do you long for time from decades ago, the good old days? But it’s not even that. I’m not even old enough to remember the good old days. I never went to church on Sunday, I don’t remember Sunday being much different than other days. Only my many years living in Europe did I experience shops being closed. In Amsterdam when shops closed at 5 (maybe 7 pm) and if you had a job, it made it hard to even get regular grocery shopping done. So what did you do? You planned ahead, you worked around it, you worked through it. You did you grocery shopping when the shops were open.

Everything is open tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I’m with family and we need milk (and a few other things). Most shops will be open tomorrow. I weirdly wish they weren’t. Does that mean I long for the time in Europe when shops are closed? Why? What’s that all about?

I almost say out loud, “Good for them!” when I see a sign in a shop window that says, “We’re gone for the holidays. We’ll reopen Dec 3.” Of course, the French, especially the Parisians, are famous for this. Signs in the shop windows, “Closed July and August.” They’re on vacation, they’re not working. They’re not checking email, they’re not available, they’re enjoying their time away from their responsibilities.

If people want to work all the time so others can get their milk, what’s wrong with that? If it makes them happy, right? Maybe I’m just old school. Maybe I’m new old school. I don’t want to relive the past, I don’t want the past in the present, I just want the shop to be closed so the owner can be with his family and so we can learn to deal with not having enough milk for tomorrow.