Today’s the first day of June, and we all know what that means: it’s National Accordion Awareness Month. It’s also National Bathroom Reading Month, National Candy Month, and Dairy Alternative Month. And if you’re not celebrating all of those holidays simultaneously by eating soy chocolate on the toilet while reading an accordion song book –in the third week of June, while being aware of carpenter ants — you are just plain un-American.
First of all, why isn’t National Candy Month in October? Second, an entire month to celebrate restroom literature as if it is equivalent to Black History Month or American Heart Month? All of planet earth only gets one day.
I’m all for drawing awareness to things that matter, and I recognize that having a specific time of year in which to concentrate public efforts is probably the most effective way to reach out to the most people. The Go Red for Women campaign, focusing on heart disease in women, saw great success in 2010, only six years after the organization was created, by concentrating awareness efforts into annual Wear Red Day. I also realize it’s not up to me to decide what matters and what doesn’t, and I firmly believe that accordions, candy, dairy alternatives, and even carpenter ants all have a place in society, but really? Can we just end this craziness now?
I feel like every time I find out about a silly (again, I realize, in my own opinion) awareness month, it takes away from the more serious campaigns people should be aware of, like National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which involves some of the country’s most-respected organizations including the American Cancer Society, and World Water Day, created by the United Nations.
In the end, I realize that this rant carries very little weight. But just keep in mind, I could declare every June 1 as National Rant About Silly Awareness Months Day, create a website, and promote it. And then maybe someone would write about that day next year.
Follow Anna Schumann on Twitter at @ASchumannCMN.
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