I tend to fall a bit behind on my newspapers, what with my endless battle against the forces of darkness and work and all, so when I picked up Monday’s paper today and read the news: “Celebrate Orlando Jones!” I knew I was already too late.  I hadn’t sent Happy Orlando Jones cards to any of my friends, I hadn’t made it out to the lot to buy my Orlando Tree, my Orlando Menorah was still packed away somewhere in the darker and more raccoon-infested regions of my attic, and clearly the time had already passed for me to leave out a 50 gallon drum of pickle relish by the microwave in hopes that Orlando Jones would bless my humble offering and fill my wooden shoes with pistachio pudding and good fortune for the new year.  For sooth, I had not even remembered to bedeck my bowling ball (Florence) with Snickerdoodles and beef jerky, set it on fire, and roll it down the mightiest hillock in the city to appease and honor the vengeful spirits of my ancestors, as my Viking forbears were wont to do upon this silliest of days.  In short, I had altogether failed to celebrate Orlando Jones.

            Some of you may chuckle to hear of it, and truly it is the case that Orlando Jones is not a holiday widely celebrated amongst the people of my tribe, and to through all of it thoroughly, I’d have to get way more into the Protestant Reformation, John Calvin, and the A-Team than I have space for here (though I do have space to point out that John Calvin and the A-Team would make a most Orlandoriffic name for a band).  Let’s just say then, that ever has my home been a veritable stronghold of Orlando Jonesian good cheer and wassailing during this more blessed at least than Arbor Day season.  Alas, thanks to all the greeting card companies focusing on such made up secular holidays as Ramadan, the birthday of Martin Van Buren, and Spocktoberfest (which has been so far removed from it’s once great religious import that all anyone nowadays does is use it as yet another excuse to put on pointy ears and burn William Shatner in effigy, delightful a pastime as it may be).

            The origins of Orlando Jones are shrouded in mystery, though recent archeological studies have unearthed evidence that it was the ancient Sumerians who first began to worship Orlando Jones as the bringer of Daylight Savings Time.  This of course was a recent development back then, and as it allowed them all a chance to mow their lawns and slay additional Hittites on the way home from the office, they honored the day greatly indeed, and it is with good reason that Sumerian sites so often are replete with small jade idols of Orlando Jones riding a lawn mower, with a scimitar in one hand, a brief case in the other, a funky demon skull thingie in his penultimate hand, and a flaming bowling ball in his fourth, while wearing a necklace of pistachios and mowing down a general mixture of ferrets and other infidels.

            From thence the celebration of the day passed on to the ancient Babylonians, who would frequently inter their greatest of leaders with great bronze vats of pickle relish to buy entrance into the Elysian halls of the Underworld where great Orlando Jones rules benevolently from an ebon throne of legumes.

            Indeed, though some might call it a coincidence, it is altogether a meaningful thing that the Titanic set sail on Orlando Jones, but having failed, in a fit of modern hubris, to observe the proper rituals to Orlando Jones, great god of the seas that he is, many believe that it was he who smote the vessel with the twin plagues of an iceberg and Leonardo Dicaprio.  In fact, sailors have long venerated Orlando Jones, their cry of “Land, Ho!” having nothing to do with the espying of dry ground, but merely being a nautical corruption of the original cry, “Orlando!”

            So, even if you are among those benighted legions who have never celebrated Orlando Jones before, fear not, and neither despair that his day is passed for the present year.  But rather, make an effort to celebrate Orlando Jones every day, both in your heart and life, and in the way you dwell amongst your fellow men.  So happy belated Orlando Jones, everybody, and may all your shoes be ever filled with pistachio pudding!