What is your least favorite day of the year? Think about it for a minute. What is the one day that you absolutely dread? What is the one day of the year that you wish you could just skip entirely?
I asked some friends and co-workers this question and I got answers that probably wouldn’t surprise you. A lot of folks named April 15, Tax Day, as their least favorite day of the year. Some mentioned Dec. 26 and Jan. 1 citing the post-holiday let downs that often occur.
A few people even mentioned the day after the Super Bowl as their least favorite day because to them it meant the end of their favorite time of year, football season. A couple of my male friends claimed that Feb. 14 was their least favorite day of the year. They were all married by the way.
For me, it’s a no brainer. This Wednesday is my least favorite day of the year. That’s right, Halloween. I absolutely despise Halloween. And it’s not because I hate trick-or-treaters, pumpkins or candy. In fact, I’m a big fan of kids in costumes, big orange pumpkins and as my ever-expanding waistline can attest, candy of all kinds.
I hate Halloween because it has historically been my longest, toughest, most annoying day at work. Halloween traffic is the bane of my existence.
If you are new to the area, let me clue you in on Halloween traffic.
It’s horrendous. Parents flee their offices around 3 p.m. to make sure they get home in time to get the kids dressed in costumes and out for trick-or-treating. It’s like a mass exodus from businesses all around Atlanta. Traffic quickly becomes gridlocked as parents head to suburbia and the delays can linger until well after the sun sets.
Every Halloween I am at work from 4 a.m. to at least 7 p.m. It is one of the rare afternoon rush hours that I get called into work. It’s awful.
Most years I don’t even get home in time to hand out candy to kids in my neighborhood.
I can’t even offer any advice to commuters to avoid the delays. The only way to stay out of the jams is to telework that day, call in sick, or miss Halloween all together and leave work at 8 p.m.
If you do get stuck in the bumper-to-bumper delays on Halloween, try to relax and remember how excited your kids are going to be when you finally get home. And when you do finally get home, have a mini Snickers for me. I will probably still at work thankful that it will be another 365 days until the next Halloween.
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