Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" BRRRRRRIIIIIINNNNG! There's the bell. It's time to teach school! With the first of many, many 10-hour days behind me, I'm eagerly anticipating the arrival tomorrow of my 95 vibrant pupils. Call me brave or foolish, but I like freshmen. Then again, maybe I'd better reserve judgment until next June.

If you're not in the education biz, you can't have any idea how many trees get felled, pulped, processed, packaged, unpackaged, shoved into copy machines, and ground out as administrative directives. Unashamedly, the powers that be call it "administrivia." And if our dear New Jersey Governor Fat Ass wanted to save some money, he could find ways to cut back on all the paperwork, forms, and memos!

A few hours ago, I was shoveling through a mountain of beginning-of-the-year school memos, and I found one entitled "State Approved Religious Holidays."

Oh, ho ho! Thinks I. Christmas, Easter, Yom Kippur.

Guess what? I am so not kidding ....

Samhain (Wicca) October 31
Beltain (Wicca) May 1

!!!!!!!

I won't quibble about the "Wicca" part. All hail Wicca! I'm just astonished. Astonished, I tell you!

Now, before my tap dance goes into the next combination, I will hurry to add that these holidays are excused absences for students, but not paid holy days for teachers. Meaning that my daughter The Spare can stay home on October 31 and not have the day counted against her. I have to take a personal day.

All is beautiful, though.

You see, since I started as a full-time teacher, both Beltain and Samhain have been on weekends. Beginning next year, they will be on Mondays. Armed with that religious holiday directive, I can't be accused of slacking if I take a personal day on Halloween (which I most certainly will).

Thank you, state of New Jersey, for recognizing the bored deities! Now, if we can just give the heave-ho to this union-busting, worker-hating, rich-people-pandering walrus of a governor, New Jersey will be a swell place to hang a hat.