I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I have to work July 5th. Because Independence Day falls on a Sunday, my employer decided that instead of giving us Friday or Monday off, we'll just get 8 hours added to our vacation bank for the year. That's okay until you realize that everyone else has a three-day weekend and things like the post office, bus routes, etc. are closed that day. Basically, it sucks.

Real holidays in America are far too precious and few. I've long advocated for an expansion of national holidays, but I've finally come to a more complete proposal. And seriously America, why aren't we trying to get this done? We can ask for lower taxes and/or more benefits, but why aren't we asking for more vacation? As anyone who's negotiated a job offer can tell you, you can almost always get more vacation.

I'm not sure how this can be made official, but I figure that if the federal government can create a minimum wage, they can also can also create a minimum holiday schedule to cover non-retail, non-essential services workers too, right?

So anyway, here's my plan for five additional national holidays, which would still put America way behind the rest of the world.

1. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born January 15th and his national holiday is, I think, the third Monday in January. That's just stupid. No one wants a day off in the middle of January after they've just had time off for Christmas and New Year's Day. If we're not going to have the holiday on King's actual birthday then it makes far more sense to move it to February (which is also Black History Month) and celebrate his birthday on the Monday after the Super Bowl. This gives us about six weeks from New Year's Day, which is enough time to want a day off and lets us properly celebrate our biggest sporting event of the year.

2 and 3. I know I've mentioned this before, but it's such a good idea that I'll repeat myself. We need "March Madness Days" to coincide with the first Thursday & Friday of the NCAA tournament. Besides the fact that nobody does any work those days anyway, a four-day weekend would fall a nice six weeks from Martin Luther King/Super Bowl weekend and would further break up the long, long, long stretch of holiday-less drudgery from New Years to Memorial Day. Imagine how the four day weekend would benefit retailers and tourism. It'd be a boon.

4. I figure the summer is pretty well covered with a holiday every six weeks or so. But then again we have a long stretch from Labor Day to Thanksgiving. It's nearly three months without a break. That's too long. What we need is to make up a holiday for either the second or third Friday of October. Something like Park Day or Nature Day, with the idea being that this is a day set aside to celebrate the natural beauty of our great land during the beautiful autumn season. There will also be football.

5. Finally, I figure that some miserly employers will use these new federally mandated holidays to try to take away the day after Thanksgiving which so many of them have just started included in the holiday calendar. We can't let this happen. So, we're going to make it a holiday and call it Black Friday and celebrate shopping. And, there will also be football. And pie.

How can we make this happen? Is it so ridiculous that we should want five more national holidays? I think it's ridiculous that we don't have them. I think this is a pretty simple way to make most Americans a hell of a lot happier.