Friday Junior: an Origin Story
I’ve long contemplated where the meaning of one of my favorite days of the week comes from. What is the origin of “Friday Junior,” a.k.a. Thursday to most of you?
Through long and rigorous research, pouring over volumes, nay, troves of archival documents, reference materials, videos and old tablets and scrolls, the truth was revealed to me and it was way f****** weirder than I thought it would be!
In the 4th century BC, during the Epicurean age, there lived a revered, if underappreciated group of Mental Gymnasts. People so fortified in their thought processes, they could mentally circle around each day of the week, focusing all attention on the weekend, because each day of the week sucked b*&¥s.
It was these mental gymnasts who endured in public circles the tyrannical blowhard Tropazi. Tropazi was a fat, coiffed hair man, who shouted his insane rants in front of a group of equally coiffed haired, insane blowhards. This struck me as so coincidental to the times we’re living in now, I was shocked.
These poor souls were forced to endure and watch and listen to the man for four full years — maybe longer but the records were incomplete. It was the Mental Gymnast who found a way to escape by creating workarounds in their minds for each day of the week. Hastening the race to the weekend and inching closer each day to the eradication of the evil and soulless Tropazi. A man so dumb, the records show people literally wanted to just check out of their lives while he was around.
And and thus it was that Monday remained Monday for it’s inherent awfulness. Tuesday began to be called “Double Monday,” because it likewise sucked b÷¢|s. Wednesday was referred to as “Little Thursday.” Thursday renamed aptly “Friday Junior,” which led the Mental Gymnasts back to a place of comfort known as the weekend. The weekend of course begins, and according to ancient texts always began on Friday at 9 a.m. Seems like everyone’s known this for quite some time.
In the time of Tropazi in the 4th century BC in the Epicurean age, the Mental Gymnast went largely unnoticed. People called them “fake gymnasts.” People said they were spreading “fake gymnast news,” and largely paid them no mind. It wasn’t until many years later my research indicated to me that another group of mental gymnasts, the Mental Monks came upon this sacred and ancient knowledge. How they too could mentally circle around each of the dull, boring, long, arduous and downright hideous days, by simply renaming them in attempts to get back to the weekend was a Revelation!
When these Middle Age Mental Monks brought this secret knowledge to the New World in the early 18th Century, it was passed along to a scholarly group of individuals known as “office workers.” These included scribes, blacksmiths’ assistants, butchers’ apprentices, and the worst of all, lawyers. In this group the Mental Gymnasts’ original intention found shape in a new age, as a new era of people began to emerge decade by decade, century by century. Offices and places of dull work became more common, and the need for mental gymnastics even greater. This is when Friday Junior found footing in America.
As far as I could tell, offices, retail establishments, commercial establishments and all other places of boring work, began using — in secret of course — the phrases from millennia ago. Those of “Friday Junior” and other days through the week in which had to be renamed, as to take away from the horribleness of being in the current moment, were also utilized in secret.
I was first told of “Friday Junior” when I was just 17, from a wise and bitter mentor, a man who so loathed his life and job, that at a mere 45 years old, had the physique and hairline of a 70-year-old coal miner. Little did he know that would become the norm, by the time I was 40. When my mentor spoke about “Friday Junior” and its power to distract us from it being Thursday, I was overwhelmed. Overjoyed. And relieved. There was an answer. There was a way around the week.
Now as I recline and achingly hold my brittle back, my 40 years wearing on me like those of so many office workers before me, I thank those that came before, the mental gymnasts, the mental monks, and the office workers of the New World who blazed the trail in forgetting all of the week, and simply working for the weekend.
PS that song, “Working for the weekend,” written by a mental gymnast in 425 BC. Little known fact.
