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When I was in junior high and high school, my best friend was Rick. Rick lived up the street. We both had the same warped sense of humor so we got along pretty well. We both liked comic books, MAD magazine and we both acted in the high school plays.
One year he got the latest MAD calendar. You may remember calendars like these. They had wacky sayings and made up "holidays" on almost every date. In fact, as Rick was looking through his calendar, he noticed that there were only three blank squares on the calendar. And it bugged him. So he made up his own holiday. He declared that June 8th would be DAX!. Notice the spelling. IT was always in capital letters and it had to have an exclamation point. If you left off the exclamation point, you misspelled it. Once he had invented the day, we started to make a backstory for it. We decided that on DAX! day, the DAX! mule came on his mo-ped and gave marshmallows to all the good boys and girls. You were supposed to leave carrots and sugar cubes for the DAX! mule outside the garage door on DAX! eve. And much like Christmas has traditional colors of red and green, and Halloween has black and orange, we decided that the official colors of DAX! would be brown and white. And just like Valentine's day or St. Patricks's day, we would chastise those who didn't wear the appropriate festive color. The festive color of brown.
We started doing this in January (which is when you get a new calendar). And unbelievably, we kept the topic alive up until the actual day. June 8th is right at the end of the school year when everyone is wacky anyway. So, in eighth grade, Rick and I brought in bags of marshmallows and handed them out to our friends, yelling "Happy DAX!" and asking if the DAX! mule had been good to them this year. People were like wtf? We acted like we couldn't believe that they didn't know about DAX!. People thought we were nuts, but we were nuts giving out marshmallows, so we all had a good chuckle and that was that.
Shift ahead 11 months. We are now nearing the end of our freshman year of high school. Rick has a new calendar. We have completely forgotton about DAX!. So I was understandably taken aback when I was approached in the hall by someone asking if I had any special plans for DAX! this year. I immediately sought out Rick and told him that someone actually remembered! Well, that was all it took. We went out and bought our bags of marshmallows and adding jars of Fluff to the mix this year. The morning of June 8th came and we went into the same act as last year. People remembered and were not so wtf about it. People started getting into the act, telling about their experience of running down to the garage early that morning to see what the DAX! mule had brought them.
From then on, DAX! was celebrated in our high school for at least the next 4 years. That's right 4 more years. Rick and I found out that it was even celebrated the year after we had been graduated. And the holiday still lives on today in the hearts of both man and mule.
A happy birthday to my friend Kerry Kloskowski! She and I were an unlikely duo who suddenly clicked for some reason and we because incredibly good friends. I don't see her that much anymore because we both left the horrific job that brought us together. But I love her and I want to wish her the most happiest of birthdays! And, really, how can you not love someone whose birthday lands on DAX!?
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