May Day Waylaid

Today is May Day® and you know what that means which is good because I bloody well don’t. Oh, I know 'twas on a May 1st back in the previous millenia that uniformed Citizen Seafarer™ Richard Braveheart of the underwater instructional "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" coined the catchphrase “May Day, May Day!” as he toppled onto a makeshift console during a bit of turbulence aboard his Italian U-Boat™. I know that legions of watery lager swillers across the pond consider May 1st the official start of 16-inch softball, a sport that features big-bellied, stretch-panted gents circling a diamond-shaped infield. I know that May 1 is also a day of celebration for unionized workers around the globe, who “adopted” May Day as their own — giving it a roof over its head, three square meals and all the love a barren couple can muster for a child not born to them. But that’s not all I know! Thanks to some ever-alert Twitternet™ sleuthing, I know May Day to be a blessed day, a Holy Day of Obfuscation™, when Catholic school children attend Mass wearing a crown of thorns and have ashes slapped on their foreheads as a reminder that "you were once dust but now you are ashes or something." I know that churchly May Day festivities long ago involved maypole dancing, horse prancing and cheese rolling until said activities were abolished for being pagan exercises akin to the vigorous stroking of household pets, which is to say, heavy petting. At any rate, whatever it all means, raise your periscopes, softball gloves or clenched fist high this morning, tether thyself to a maypole and commence to galloping around it. Have yourselves a glorious May Day, citizens!