Time to revisit an age old debate…well, a 51-year-old debate – should the day after the Super Bowl be considered a national holiday? But the better question is, should it be a college holiday? The answer? Heck yeah it should be.
Before I continue, I need to point out that I’ve been a New England Patriots fan for as long as I can remember. So for me, at least in the Brady era, the Super Bowl has become the Patriots Invitational. So go ahead and call us all cheaters just because your team constantly loses. It’s not our fault the Jets management is so atrocious that they thought paying Ryan Fitzmagic $12 million was a good idea.
The Super Bowl isn’t just a time for football fans to watch a big game and drink. It’s actually one of the best natural breaks in the semester. Because of the stress of returning to college life after winter break and the incredibly tedious task of orienting your body for 8 a.m. classes, having a day off to start your third week at the university would be a beautiful idea, something that everyone could use to settle down a bit. It’s not unlike this school’s random choice to give us two full days off one week after the school starts in the fall semester.
Stony Brook does a strange thing and limits time off, I guess to prepare you for the sadness of the real world, but getting Super Bowl Monday off would be a great way to make up for not getting President’s Day. Hell, we don’t even get Good Friday off, but that’s probably because we are an all-inclusive school (that gives us time off for a holiday where we celebrate murdering Native Americans).
Before you roll your eyes for the fifth straight paragraph, hear me out. Holidays are arbitrary no matter what. If they give us two days off for Labor Day, none of us are going to celebrate the American labor movement. Holidays aren’t meant for celebration – they are meant for relaxation and avoiding responsibilities. Does anyone go home on Thanksgiving and sit down with their family to join hands and give thanks that the harvest went well this season? No. We go home and say “Give me the damn turkey before my stomach implodes.”
Stony Brook administration, I implore you to consider this – why bother sending drunk kids to school? Sure, you can watch the Super Bowl and not drink like I do, but on the other hand, those who don’t drink are just cranky anyway, and while we’re at it, in the fall semester, give us a random Wednesday off just to mess with those kids who thought holidays were for drinking.
To be fair, I’ll be taking Monday off either way. If the Patriots win, I’ll be too excited to sleep and won’t come to class. If the Patriots lose, I’ll be too depressed to sleep and won’t come to class. Either way, I’ll be crying.
