A lifetime of conditioning has left me with a lingering affection for Friday. Even though there are now regularly times when I am not certain what day of the week it is, I seem always to know when it’s Friday. Friday still marks the end of the week for me. I am accustomed to noting that regular business traffic thins out by midday on Friday and there is always an air of agreeable anticipation about Friday. People frequently seem preoccupied with matters other than those of commerce on Friday as though they’re privately orchestrating plans for personal hedonism which obviously trumps the profit incentive. I similarly persist in making social arrangements for the weekend even when commitment during the week is otherwise more convenient. This in turn fuels further excitement about Friday, the beginning of a holiday of sorts, a departure from the norm and an occasion for modest celebration. This afternoon for example we capitalized upon the tradition by persuading ourselves to buy a box of homemade donuts. After all, it’s the weekend!
Though Saturday is clearly the weekend, nonetheless Friday has always epitomized the pinnacle of release from the chains of duty, the opportunity to put down the trowel and indulge oneself in the pleasures for which we’ve purportedly worked so hard. Friday of course has the further advantage of being on the cusp of the weekend celebration, uncontaminated by the prospect of a sober, religious Sunday which inevitably heralds the return to vassalage and the corresponding diminution of verve.
So revered is it that I would normally not contemplate arranging a business appointment on a Friday except if preceded by apology for its necessity. It’s a cherished custom, Friday! Instinctively I defer to Friday as a time of probable abandonment of the throttle by the working stiffs of whatever elevation within the corporate structure. One would not for example be alarmed to learn that a proprietor was absent on a Friday. By the same token Friday is a good time to address matters which are not of a pressing business nature, perhaps a friendly natter, an afternoon drive in the country for a cup of coffee or some silly shopping with a crony at one of the discount stores. If one proposes to play hooky from work, Friday is as good a day as any to do it so the opportunity for confabulation abounds! Indeed it might be considered egregiously indiscreet to have made a business appointment on a Friday as it is universally certain to collide with a happier later arrangement frequently stimulated by eager and hitherto unforeseen spontaneity. Friday invites a degree of frivolity!
Whatever one’s current situation the bald truth is that most of the world is in a state of temporary dormancy by late Friday afternoon. Small wonder Friday succeeds to overwhelm society as a whole. It is but an additional reminder that the bulk of the masses haven’t the privilege of ambiguity when it comes to Friday. The adherence to this hallowed custom is a cultural observance not merely a condescension.