Start Your Engines…

Of all the senseless holidays I have tried to bring to light, today’s holiday makes them all pale in comparison. The only difference is that today’s holiday is in no way senseless. Well, at least I don’t think it is. Today my friends is NASCAR Day. That’s all I can tell you. I really have no idea what the holiday is for or how one is to set about celebrating it but I celebrated it in my own special way…at work.

My excitement began last night when I laid out my best racing outfit. Normally, I am to fashion what a mole is to an elephant, but when it comes to racing gear, I can dress with the best of them. I had a dilemma: do I wear my Dale Earnhardt Senior #3 shirt, cap and jacket or my Dale Earnhardt Jr. #8 baseball jersey, cap and jacket since he is still racing? Then my mind wandered to how out of fashion I will me in my #8 regalia next year when he changes teams and car numbers. I chastised myself for breaking my cardinal rule of only rooting for deceased or retired drivers since their apparel will never be out of style. In the end, I went for a combination of #3 and #8 gear and if I may speak highly of myself for just a moment, I made those clothes look good (in a redneck, crazy fan, obsessive sort of way).

I got to work and the first thing I immediately noticed was that I appeared to be the sole participant in NASCAR Day at my office. I passed the receptionist area with all eyes on me. I could hear a few whispers that sounded something vaguely like ‘what the he - - does he think he’s doing,’ but I didn’t let that phase me. I greeted everyone out front and wished them all a Merry NASCAR Day. All I got in response was a bunch of sighs and rolled eyes. Then I tried wishing them a Happy NASCAR Day but that didn’t help any. As I turned the corner to head towards my office area, I could hear everyone I just left erupt into laughter. Wow, they got into the NASCAR spirit in a hurry.

My secretary was the first to greet me. She looked up at me and sighed, ‘oh yeah, that’s right, it’s NASCAR Day. I didn’t think you would bother coming in today, but I see I was wrong.’ Have a mentioned before how much I value her? Next up was Mr. Lay Low who said ‘nice duds, dude.’ He wondered why he didn’t get the memo for the costume contest and I just laughed that off politely. My boss came down the hall and literally did a double take when he saw me. Well, maybe he didn’t see me. I suppose he could have been reacting to the huge #8 flag I draped across the back of my cubicle. He told me good morning and then made sure to mention that I should know I couldn’t wear what I was wearing to work. I acted surprised. It’s the first time in a long while that my one semester of high school drama classes paid off.

I then explained that this was an officially recognized holiday and that it gave me the right to celebrate it as a NASCAR fan. He said he would verify that and get back to me. The moment he left my padded cell, I mean cubicle, I grabbed my well-worn copy of our Employee Manual. While there was mention of holidays and celebrations, I could not locate the exact paragraph that stipulated NASCAR Day as one of the holidays recognized by our company. I’m sure it’s just a page missing from the manual. My boss got off the phone with HR and then came back to ask me a few questions. He said that HR could not establish that NASCAR Day is an official holiday and there was no mention of it in our list of recognized holidays. I expressed my surprise that HR’s manual was also missing the same page as mine.

My boss asked how I knew that the holiday was an officially recognized national holiday. A-ha! I now knew that the balance of power had shifted towards me, so I confidently explained that NASCAR Day was official because I had seen commercials about it featuring Kelly Clarkson as official NASCAR Day spokeswoman and that the NASCAR website had a link and a logo about this holiday. I figured that faced with such irrefutable evidence my boss would issue an email telling everyone to go get a NASCAR shirt so that we could all celebrate the holiday as a team.

Unfortunately, that’s not what ended up happening. First, he made an announcement that three of us (including myself) had each won $500 dollars in a contest dealing with our recent performance. I joked that had I known about the contest and drawing (despite the 13 posters throughout our office reminding us about it) that I would have actually tried. Well, that comment wasn’t received too well. Then, my boss apologized and said that despite my valiant efforts I could not celebrate NASCAR Day at work by wearing ‘sporting paraphernalia’ and must return home until I could come back to work wearing appropriate business shirt and tie.


Although I should have been embarrassed as I left the office with my flag, hat and Dale Jr. jersey, I kept my head high. It was half way home that I realized how much I had just lucked out. It’s a Friday, I was headed home to ‘change my clothes,’ it’s NASCAR Day, there was almost 10 hours of NASCAR related programming on the Speed Channel and I had an extra $500 dollars in my pocket that I didn’t have earlier that day. Yeah, it took me about 3 hours to ‘change my clothes’ before I returned to work…Happy NASCAR Day everybody!!!