Wodin's Day

"Let's ask Bear, he'll know if anybody does..."

This statement intrudes on my thoughts, ripping me out of whatever daydream or reverie I had been immersed in back to the present...

It was the voice of the yard foreman... I looked towards the sound of the commotion, and about ten of the yard guys and drivers were clustered around the daily delivery driver's sign out log, where the drivers routinely logged their deliveries prior to departure.

"Bear, c'mere a second!"

I walked over, mildy (very mildly) curious about what was transpiring.

One of the drivers asked, "How do you spell Wednesday??"

Bear: "W-"..

Driver 1: "Its W-E-N-S-D-A-Y, right!?!"

Foreman: "No, Jackass!! Its W-E-N-D-S-D-A-Y !!"

A huge argument ensued, I stood there, watching as the cacophony of screaming voices, epithets, threats and catcalls growing louder and louder, punctuated by the odd shove or slap up the backside of somebody's head, I decided that it was pointless for me to remain there, and decided to go back to whatever it was that I was doing. As I turned to head back to my work station, everybody went silent.

Driver 2: "How do you spell it, Bear??"

Bear: "Well, its spelled W-E-D-N-E-S-D-A-Y."

Group: "What!","What the fuck is that!?!", "There ain't no D in Wenzday!!", "Moron!", "Jackass!", "Bear, you stupid motherfucker!! I thought you could SPELL!!!", "That spells WED-NESS-DAY, dipshit!"

[Deep breath...]

Bear: "Would you like to know why its spelled that way?? I can explain it, if you'd like."

Foreman: "Yeah, tell us, snapperhead... we wanna know!"

Bear: "The days were named after the old gods, celestial bodies, and other stuff. Sunday is, obviously SUN-day, Monday is MOON-day, Tuesday is named after Mars, the god of war, and Wednesday is WODIN's-Day, or WEDENS-DAY, which has become WEDNES-Day... Wodin's Day!! - W-E-D-N-E-S-D-A-Y!"

They were all silent and thoughtful about this as they mulled it over, then;

"That's a crock of shit! Fuckin' Wodin's Day! GET the fuck outta here with that bullshit!!", "Where'd ya pick that up, a fuckin' book??", "Wodin my ass!", "Dickhead!", "Whattya think we're fuckin' stupid??", "Jackass!".

Bear: "Well... if you look at any calendar, you will see that that's how they spell it. Don't take my word for it, look it up yourselves..."

I went back to my work, and seconds became minutes, minutes became hours, and the day wore on....

The old man wandered over to where I was and said, "Wodin's Day, huh??" (Obviously, he had heard the scuttlebut about the whole Wednesday thing...).

Bear: "Yeah..."

Old Man: "Ya know, I thought you were smart enough to know better than to go around spelling something wrong just because they got it wrong on a calendar... So I guess you ain't so smart after all, eh jackass!! You're just like that freak in "Alice in Wonderland; the Tin Man..... 'If I only had a brain'!! Moron!! I got more brains in my little finger than you got in that thick head of yours!"

Bear: "..... I guess you're right, Old Man."

Tin Man? Alice in Wonderland? Holy shit....

I guess it all depends on what piece of ground you happen to be standing on, or what crowd you happen to be a part of that determines just how smart or stupid you are at any given moment....

...At least it was actually Wednesday.... or was it Wendzday??