Book of Daze: Postmodern Meaning Day

Postmodern Meaning Day celebrates the right of all people to possess unique personal meanings without the expense and inconvenience of having them verified. Participants are reminded that facts are merely opinions with a filing system.

The observance of Postmodern Meaning Day began in 1987 when Clifford Pexton, thirty-eight, an associate philosophy professor who listed disagreements as publications, received a parking ticket in a loading zone outside his department.

Pexton maintained that the loading zone was a social construct. The university agreed but still deducted forty dollars from his socially constructed paycheck.

Undeterred Pexton founded Postmodern Meaning Day. Its inaugural conference attracted sixty-three attendees, according to organizers, and eleven, according to the restaurant that had reserved the back room. Both figures remain on the commemorative plaque.

The official record holder for Postmodern Meaning Day is Marlene Drebber, sixty-one, a municipal communications consultant who carries a spare pair of reading glasses for documents she has no intention of reading.

Drebber sustained nine incompatible accounts of a missing snowplow through four public hearings. Each account received its own executive summary. The snowplow eventually appeared behind the municipal garage. Officials described it as an additional perspective.

To observe Postmodern Meaning Day, celebrants should select a minor personal failure and develop an interpretation according to which it never occurred. Family members may participate by withholding photographs.

Refreshments served on Postmodern Meaning Day include whatever guests remember ordering. Receipts are discouraged.

This year’s national ceremony will feature the unveiling of a new official history of the observance. Pexton has protested his omission. Organizers have challenged him to prove that he existed.

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