Charities start bombarding me with calendars (attached to demands for donations) in August. By October the malls have entire stores devoted to them. Calendars are our way of tracking time and making a statement with photos of things we love (or love to hate).
Every year my mother and I have a calendar tradition going on. She picks a pocket version for herself: I hang on to one charity’s version for our wall, and then I collect the others and take them to work so my coworkers can adorn their cubicles with images of national parks, flowers, objects in nature which happen to look like hearts, endangered species, USO images from the past and drawings by hospitalized or health-compromised children. We all like to look at them, of course, but the free ones are just part of the calendar phenomenon.
The calendar stores contain hundreds of the things. There are “page-a-day” versions with favorite cartoons, words of advice or even Sudoku puzzles or daily knitting patterns. Dr. Phil has a page-a-day based on his most recent book, and I bought one so I can get through 2015 with some well-grounded advice. I saw one devoted to a unique book called “What’s Your Poo Telling You?” I passed on that one.
Every breed of dog has a calendar, but cats get shortchanged as it seems no one breed has a spotlight. I’d like to see a Manx calendar or a Birman calendar, thank you.
Every television series and motion picture gets a calendar. “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter” still have a strong showing, and discontinued cable shows like “True Blood” get a nod (even though, in my opinion, that show’s ending was horribly lame), and Hollywood icons still get money in their estate’s coffers with devotional monthly photo merchandise. No calendar store is complete without Elvis or Marilyn Monroe.
The organizational calendars have a whole wall to themselves in which they are–yes–well organized. There are calendars for left-handed users and leathernecks, calendars for fans of ferrets and tree frogs, pop art and travel, teddy bears and teapots. This is the true wall mart, my friends.
And for those of us who have lost our calendars, one page usually has September through December of the current year on it, possibly to make up for how early you are buying one.
One of my favorite calendars for the past two years has finally gone out of production. I think I’ll stay with one of the ones I got in the mail, since I donated to get it. I may not have Grumpy Cat all year, but I can still stare at a grid of days and weeks and remain grounded in what we call time and place, with Dr. Phil on my desk to keep me company.
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