By Michael Glenn
Teen-age Dirtbag
I hate Sundays.
Hate’s a strong word, but it’s true. It’s been the worst day of the week in my books for as long as I can remember.
It’s got nothing to do with church (I grew up going on Saturday evening, not Sunday) or anything along those lines. There’s just an impending feeling of doom that gets under my skin every seventh day.
So I write this, of course, on a Sunday. Maybe firing up the old laptop and crunching out this column will help. I was eating lunch with my grandparents when I really wondered what was causing this phenomenon. Did everyone feel like this on Sunday? Surely not, because people willingly get out of bed on Sundays to go to church, and most of the people who go there are good, honest people.
Later that day, I found out that what I may be experiencing is called the “Sunday scaries.” Sunday scaries are associated with being uneasy about the work week ahead. Throw in a bit of anxiety and not being able to go out because it feels like five degrees outside, and you’ve got yourself a heck of a downer!
I’m not sure this fully fits why I and the holy day of the week evidently have mixed feelings about each other, but I hope it goes away.
I rank the days of the week as follows: Saturday, Friday, Thursday, Monday, Wednesday, Tuesday and taking up the runt of the bunch, Sunday.
Saturday, especially as a student, is the reward we receive for surviving the week. I catch a lot of grief from my engineering and biology friends who have stacks of homework that drive them to insanity well into the weekends, but I’m done by Friday afternoon at the latest.
“God, I’d be pretty upset with whoever picked your major,” I usually respond when I hear of a 101-assignment week.
Me? I’m staying busy with four or five assignments a week as a journalism major, at most.
Now, I’m sure that’s going to come back to bite me here soon. Maybe next year, or even next semester. I’ve got a full slate of classes waiting to play with my sanity like it’s a game of checkers. But I’ll take my wins when I can, and the end of my first semester as a Jayhawk was certainly one.
But that’s neither here nor there. I’m in Hutch for the next three weeks or so after this piece publishes, and I’m interested to see what I can stick my nose into.
The first thing my nose got a fresh whiff of was smoke, from a Dec. 19 fire out north of town. My sweater, coat, and hat reeked of smoke for at least a couple of days. I made sure to wear all of those clothes out today, in hopes that a 45-mile-per-hour wind gust takes the smoky odors away.
After that weekend of lung recovery, I returned to the office Monday for two days of work before Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. There’s something unique about working in a real office. This had been my first experience doing just that, sitting behind a desk and taking phone calls from a phone that’s hooked up to the wall.
Ancient things, I know. A phone that’s hooked up to the wall? All I know is that the phone is our responsibility, and I’ve had the pleasure of answering it more than once.
This may sound a bit mundane to the average reader, but a physical office in downtown Hutchinson is miles different than what I remembered working in: my bedroom. In fact, it’s where I’m at right now, typing away on my sticker-ridden laptop on my bed.
I remember sharing with a colleague that my old “desk” used to be a box fan stacked upon a TV tray, balancing my laptop on the top of the box fan. I used to love makeshift standing desks until I learned of the discovery of the office chair.
I’ve also started reading for pleasure again, in an effort to stop doomscrolling and remind myself of the world that awaits me after college. I read a great history of Mexico and found an author, Hunter S. Thompson, who’s both wildly entertaining and (somewhat factually) accurate. He’s a journalist from the 20th century who flipped our industry on its head, and I’d encourage you all to check him out if you ever need some news that’s not written in an objective, “upside-down pyramid” format.
So far, I’ve read “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and am reading “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72”.
Maybe after all, that’s what I feel on Sundays: Fear and Loathing.