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National Flip Flop Day

national flip flop dayJune 17, 2016, is National Flip Flop Day, a holiday invented by U.S. national restaurant chain Tropical Smoothie Café. On the third Friday of June from 2 pm – 7 pm local time, every customer wearing flip flops will receive a free Jetty Punch Smoothie.

Since 2007, the chain has raised funds for Camp Sunshine in Casco, Maine. There, children with life-threatening illnesses and their families can have fun while surrounded by professionals devoted to their emotional and medical support.

A week there usually costs $2,500. To date, Tropical Smoothie Café customers have donated $3,700,000. Their generosity has allowed every family to attend Camp Sunshine free of charge. While you enjoy your ésmoothie, why not donate the money you save to a worthy cause?

Happy National Flip Flop Day!

PS: In 2009, two New York Daily News reporters wore flip flops for four days, then had them swabbed. The lab tests found fecal bacteria, Aerococcus viridans, Rothia mucilaginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus, among other things. So after you get home, take those things off and wash your feet!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

May 28 is Julia Pierpont Day

julia pierpont day

Today is Julia Pierpont Day, named in honor of the woman who originated Decoration Day.

In 1866, Julia Pierpont, wife of the Governor of  Virginia, noticed that the graves of Civil War soldiers in Richmond’s cemeteries looked neglected.

She started Decoration Day to show respect for those who had given their lives by tending to their final resting places.

Decoration Day provided the inspiration for Memorial Day. It takes place every year on the Saturday before the federal holiday. In 2005, it was proclaimed an official holiday in West Virginia.

Happy Julia Pierpont Day, Decoration Day and Memorial Day!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

May 13 is National Blame Someone Else Day

national blame someone else dayToday is National Blame Someone Else Day, celebrated on the first Friday the 13th of the year. According to almost every source we checked, the holiday was invented by Anne Moeller of Clio, Michigan in 1982.

That fateful day, her alarm didn’t go off, so she was late for work. More bad luck ensued. When Anne realized it was Friday the 13th, she decided she should create a new holiday.

Did that happen? The tale has made the rounds of sites and news outlets; none of them cite a verifiable source. When a story is repeated a (shockingly low) number of times, it reaches a tipping point and attains the status of fact. This is often due to expediency and laziness passed off as the need to churn copy and the rationalization that no one cares if it’s true.

We assume that if you’ve taken the time to seek out information about a holiday, you would prefer the details to be true whenever possible. We do our best to plumb every wacky holiday for its funniest facts. If you’re out there, Anne Moeller, and that’s not how it all went down, we apologize and thank you for creating a day when we can blame someone else!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

May 12 is National Nutty Fudge Day

national nutty fudge day

Today is National Nutty Fudge Day. Where did this tasty treat originate and how did it get its name?

The creation of American-style chocolate fudge is often credited to student Emelyn Hartridge and her Vassar Fudge recipe. She later revealed in a letter, preserved in the Vassar College Archives, that she had cheated:

Fudge, as I first knew it, was first made in Baltimore by a cousin of a school mate of mine. It was sold in 1886 in a grocery store for 40 cents a pound and my brother Julian bought me my first box. … I secured the recipe and in my first year at Vassar I made it there — and in 1888 I made 30 pounds for the Senior Auction, its real introduction to the college, I think.

Miss Hartridge neglected to name the school chum, her cousin or the store that sold it in Baltimore. The paper trail ends there, so we’re unable to determine who invented fudge, or at least its chocolate incarnation. Was it a happy accident, a confectionery miracle, or a product of diligent trial and error? We may never know.

It’s also unclear how fudge earned its name. Delving into the history of the word reveals no easy answers. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the use of fudge as a verb meaning to “put together clumsily or dishonestly” dates to 1771. The word itself may have derived from fadge, “to make suit or fit,” used since the 1570s.

In 1664, Samuel Pepys, whose diaries are used by scholars to illuminate the English Restoration period, wrote of Captain Fudge, a merchant seaman he had engaged to take goods to Tangier before the discovery of his “knavery and neglect.”

After finding the condition of the ship, no master, not above four men, and many ship’s provisions, sayls, and other things wanting, I went back and called upon Fudge, whom I found like a lying rogue unready to go on board, but I did so jeer him that I made him get every thing ready….I confess I am at a real trouble for fear the rogue should not do his work, and I come to shame and losse of the money I did hope justly to have got by it.

We don’t hear of Captain Fudge again so perhaps he acquitted himself well. But is he the reason “fudge” became a derogatory verb? A pamphlet called Remarks on the Navy, printed in 1700, had this to say:

There was, sir, in our time, one Captain Fudge, commander of a merchantman, who upon his return from a voyage, how ill-fraught soever his ship was, always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies; so much that now, aboard ship, the sailors, when they hear a great lie told, cry out, ‘You fudge it!’

It seems possible that a seaman derelict in his duties may have influenced the English language. As for who invented delicious, sugary fudge: Who cares? Let’s eat some and call it a day. (Well, it is already a day.) If you’re not a fan of nuts, hang in there. National Fudge Day is June 16th!

Happy National Nutty Fudge Day!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays