Ranking the top seven pieces of household furniture

It's one of the oldest debates in the world: What's the best piece of household furniture?

Never heard anyone argue over that? Well, you don't live in my brain, because it's been a topic of debate since I thought of it a few weeks ago.

Is it a bed? The kitchen table? The couch? A favorite chair?

Put another way: If you could only keep one piece of furniture, what would you pick?

The MVP – most valuable piece (of furniture) – seems obvious to me, but the rest of the rankings aren't.

Until now. Here, by (un)popular demand, is the definitive ranking of household furniture, based on versatility, utility and how your life would look if they disappeared.

7. Desk. This became increasingly important for many of us since March 2020. Having a dedicated place to place your computer and other such items is valuable. Trust me. I'm sitting at my desk (a converted sewing table) as I write this. However, it's not irreplaceable. Just ask anyone working at a kitchen table (see below).

6. Living room chair. You could survive without a living room chair, but you wouldn't prosper. In virtually any house in America, the most-used piece of furniture is the best living room chair, invariably placed in a direct line from the TV. It's like Kevin Durant when he played for the Warriors. Not necessary, but sure makes things better.

5. Kitchen table. Even if you don't use it for meals, it provides a large, flat storage area for papers, mail and anything else. It's also valuable when needed: If you only use it a few times a year, those are important meals.

4. Coffee table. My friend Nick convinced me that it belongs here because of versatility: You can put food on it, use it as an ottoman and even use it for storage. He's right. The Swiss Army knife of furniture.

3. Chest of drawers/dresser. An aside: When Mrs. Brad and I married, our first big argument was over where to put the chest of drawers. We kept arguing and neither of us could believe that the other person was serious: Why would you put a chest of drawers there? Ultimately, we realized that what Mrs. Brad called a chest of drawers is what the rest of the world calls a dresser – the longer, lower item with drawers and a mirror. It was the last major argument I won. On point for these rankings: What happens if your chest of drawers/dresser disappears? Do your clothes go in boxes? This is the ultimate storage solution – furniture as storage!

2. Bed. Back in the day, I could sleep anywhere. On a couch. In a chair. On the floor in either a sleeping bag or with a blanket. In a car, if necessary. The older I get, the more important the bed becomes. This provides a service no other piece of furniture provides: A place for blissful sleep. That's invaluable.

1. Couch. The king of the castle, because it is a quadruple-threat. It can be a place for (multiple) people to sit. It can be a favorite chair. We can eat while sitting on a couch, making it a replacement for a kitchen chair and table. The final bonus is that serves as the backup to your bed. You can sleep on the couch. If you only had one piece of furniture, this would be the pick. It's the Bo Jackson of furniture.

Reach Brad Stanhope at BradStanhope@outlook.com.

The naked truth about medical patients and those paper robes

So I was at the doctor's office recently, ready for a minor procedure.

The physician's assistant did all her work – taking my blood pressure and pulse, asking what medications I take, confirming my pharmacy, asking why I was there (aren't all of those things written down? Didn't I already tell multiple people these things and fill out a form about them? Is this an effort to catch me in a lie?).

She informed me that as a diabetic, I would have my feet checked, so I needed to take off my shoes and socks. Then she handed me one of those paper robes and told me to put it on and have the opening in the front.

She started to leave.

"Um, I have a question," I asked.

She stopped, no doubt wishing I would just follow orders.

"What do I need to take off?" I asked.

"What?"

"For the robe. What clothes do I take off?"

The doctor needed to see my torso, but the physician's assistant handed me a robe. And told me to put it on, with the opening in front. Was I supposed to totally undress?

"Just your shirt."

"OK. One more question."

I'm pretty sure they love me at the doctor's office and find my curiosity charming. The physician's assistant looked up. I could ask my question.

"Do people sometimes take off too many clothes? Do you sometimes come back in the room and they're naked? Maybe naked for a blood pressure test?"

I barely got it out, because I was starting to giggle, thinking of the awkward situation of a doctor walking in for a consultation and the patient sitting there, buck naked except for a paper robe.

"Yes. That happens sometimes. A lot of times in the summer, because it's warm." Then she left.

What?

What?

I laughed at the idea of someone mistakenly taking off too many clothes. I envisioned someone naked except for a paper robe while an uncomfortable doctor looks in their ears or checks out a spot on their arm. Maybe someone with no pants on as the doctor simply asks them questions about their eyesight.

But she gave a different answer: She said that people took off their clothes a lot in the summer. Because it was hot.

Did she mean that some people go to the doctor's office and disrobe because they get overheated? That some patients would prefer to sit on an uncomfortable bench in a stranger's office while wearing a paper robe that keeps opening . . . because it's hot?

That can't be true, right? I mean, I get that people misunderstand directions – after all, had I not asked for clarification, I might have disrobed for an appointment where my doctor just had to check out my torso (I envision her walking in and saying, "What do you think you're doing, you freak?" while I tried to keep the paper robe closed and wondered the same thing).

But do some people enjoy disrobing at the doctor's office? To wear that dreadful paper robe?

That can't be true. I'm going to presume the physician's assistant didn't understand my question, although I'm not sure how that would happen.

People don't needlessly get undressed at the doctor's office to cool off, do they?

I may never again go to the doctor during the summer months. Who knows what happened in the room before I got there?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Fifteen talking points to get you through the Super Bowl

If you're not a football fan on Super Bowl Sunday, it can be lonely.

I understand. I'm a football fan, but I know what it's like to not care about something that everyone else is fascinated by – after all, I don't care about Star Wars. Or MMA fights. Or plant-based foods. Or "Project Runway." (OK, I occasionally watch "Project Runway." But I don't care about the others.)

It's hard to be an outsider. If you're not a football fan (or a fan of commercials), today may be rough. Super Bowl Sunday is one of America's unofficial holidays and is practically unavoidable.

How to survive? I have some talking points to get you through – allowing you to see the commercials that people will be discussing Monday.

Here are 15 things you can say during the game that will make it seem like you are paying attention. Some are true.

• "Isn't it weird that Super Bowl is two words, but football is one word? And first down is two words but touchdown is one word?"
• "Nice play by Rams running back Sony Michel. Speaking of Sony, have you seen my Walkman? I lost it in 2007."
• "This is Super Bowl LVI. Do you know how to say that? It's pronounced, 'Livie.'"
• "I know Bengals running back Joe Mixon is good, but what do you think his life is like, having Joe Biden's first name and Richard Mixon's last name? Wait. It's not Richard Mixon? Really? Boy have I been wrong for a long time. This is embarrassing. Next, you're going to tell me it wasn't Jimmy Barter."
• "Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is the grandson of Jim Stafford. You know, the guy who sang 'Spiders and Snakes' in the 1970s."
• "Cincinnati has a good football team, but you know what is really big there? Cincinnati is the capital of cornhole!"
• "Oh, sure, this halftime show is enjoyable, it's Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg! But they've got to go a ways to beat Up With People, who did four Super Bowl halftime shows.  I presume they were in favor of people, which is admirable. Oh, sorry. I'll be quiet so you can listen."
• "Oh, Eminem is performing. Which reminds me, please hand some of those multi-colored button-shaped chocolates. I can't remember what they're called."
• "Which team is the 49ers?"
• "Rams coach Sean McVay is the youngest coach in the NFL. He's 14 and is in eighth grade."
• "Did you know that Rams' receiver Cooper Kupp has a third arm sticking out of his chest? That's why he catches so many balls."
• "This game is being played in SoFi Stadium. Do you think they're using WiFi and listening to a HiFi? Hahahaha. Isn't it weird that Super Bowl is two words, but . . . "
• The Bengals have never won a championship. They're kind of like Susan Lucci. You know, Erica Kane on 'All My Children.' Oh, sorry. I didn't know you were paying attention to the game."
• "I know this is important, but is it OK if I flip over to the Puppy Bowl for a second?"
• "The winner of the game gets the Lombardi Trophy. It's named after that legendary NFL coach whose name everyone knows: Vince Trophy."

Reach Brad Stanhope (who really doesn't like Star Wars) at brad.stanhope@outlook.com.

Want good news? Here are some bad events that don't happen much anymore

You hear it all the time. In fact, you've probably said it: "The world is getting crazier all the time. There's so much bad news. It's depressing."

Sure, we're in the third year of a pandemic (four, if you count 2019, when it actually started). There's unprecedented division in American politics. There are insane weather events every few months. There are school shootings virtually every month.

But it could be worse. Much worse, because it was worse in my childhood. This isn't a "back in my day, we really had it rough" column. No, wait. I guess it is.

It's also an attempt to note that four scary things that dominated the news in the 1970s and early 1980s rarely happen now – and we don't realize it.

Kidnappings for ransom. When was the last time you heard about someone being abducted and held for ransom? This was a regular thing back in the day. Someone famous would be taken by armed men and held in exchange for $1 million or the release of prisoners or something else. Sure, there was Patty Hearst, but there was also John Paul Getty and Aldo Moro and all those kids on that school bus in Chowchilla. Stranger abductions still happen, but not for ransom.

Skyjackings. You couldn't get through a week in the 1970s without there being a plane hijacked (cleverly called "skyjacked"). Maybe to Cuba, which seemed crazy. Maybe to Rome.  Maybe to an African country. Heck, D.B. Cooper became a legend by hijacking a plane in Portland, getting $200,000 and jumping out over southwestern Washington. When was the last time you heard about a plane being hijacked? Sept. 11, 2001, changed everything. Now we have intense security at airports and anyone who hijacks a plane is much more likely to be killed by the other passengers than to arrive safely at their destination. Skyjackings have largely disappeared from our consciousness. There were 130 American skyjackings between 1968 and 1972. You know how many American airplanes have been skyjacked since Sept. 11, 2001? Zero.

Plane crashes. Some still happen, but did you know that there were two U.S. commercial plane crashes in 2021, both minor (at least to those of us not onboard)? Compare that to 40 years ago, when there were seven fatal crashes of American commercial airliners, killing a combined 195 passengers. Heck, for much of my childhood, it felt like a rock star was killed in a plane crash every couple of months. There has been one passenger fatality in a U.S. commercial airline crash since 2019. Planes almost never crash.

Serial killers. When was the last time you heard about a serial killer? I guess it could be happening, but we would likely notice it. Think about the 1970s and 1980s, when we had a stream of serial killers. There was Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. There was Juan Corona and Jeffrey Dahmer. There was Richard Ramirez and Wayne Williams. There was even the Zodiac killer, who we never identified. Was there something about that era that led to serial killers?

So yeah, the news is often bad. It feels gloomy. But look on the sunny side: Plane crashes, skyjackings, kidnapping for ransom and serial killers have virtually stopped.

That's one bit of the past that isn't worth nostalgia.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Exposing the malarkey behind reporting on stock market changes

We've all heard or read a variation of this and we've generally accepted it: "The stock market was up 400 points today on news that the inflation rate slowed in February."

Or, "Stocks were down sharply today, due to concerns over tensions in the Middle East."

Or, "Stocks remained were mixed today on news that Apple expects fourth-quarter earnings to fall short of expectations."

That's the template for reporting on the stock market – one that has been in place at least since I was a kid, when virtually every radio or TV broadcast had a "business" segment that primarily reported on the stock market.

I call baloney.

The connection of news events and the stock market is something that we accept because we've all heard it for decades. We're like people in the Middle Ages who were sure the sun rotated around the Earth because they'd heard it for decades. Or Raiders fans who believe their team is special because they've heard themselves say it for decades.

A caveat: Sometimes, news events do drive the performance of the stock market. When there's dramatic financial news (a country declares bankruptcy, Microsoft or Apple announces a brilliant success or miserable failure, a catastrophic news event happens), it affects the stock market.

But the rest of the time, here's what I suspect happens: Business reporters look at the stock market and then find a news item that could have some sort of financial angle. And connect them.

Stocks are up on the news of . . . uh . . . a trade agreement between Panama and Canada! Or maybe a tech company's earnings are better than expected. Or maybe the number of jobs created last month were up.

Stocks are down on news of . . . uh  . . . an oil spill in Saudi Arabia! Or persistent rumors that the Fed may raise interest rates. Or reports that a big company will have a disappointing report.

I spent several years choosing stories to appear on the Daily Republic business pages. I always suspected the reporting on the stock market was bunk, but I also always picked stock market stories because they're the scoreboard of the financial world.

Over the past decade, we've become more sophisticated in how we view the stock market. We realize that an increase in stock prices doesn't mean that thing are better for all of us. We realize that stock prices going down doesn't mean imminent catastrophe for all of us.

The stock market is not directly connected to us, any more than an increase in the stock market is connected to the news of the day.

Really, it's absurd when you think about parallels. What if someone wrote, "The new Batman movie had a huge weekend box office after news broke Friday that Samsung's new Galaxy phone exceeded sales expectations."

Or if you read, "The Warriors won their third straight game last night on news that Russia was sending more troops to the Ukrainian border."

How about if someone reported, "The number of COVID infections dropped today on news that Britney Spears' conservatorship would end."

We'd laugh at that. Or . . . maybe we'd adopt that as our strategy.

Consider a world where you make this kind of announcement: "I won't make it to work today on news of disappointing fourth-quarter earnings for Exxon."

Or you explain away a failure by saying, "I didn't clean up the kitchen because of rumors that Netflix is raising their monthly fees."

Wait a second. Maybe this all makes sense. And if it doesn't, that's probably due to rumors that the Fed may boost the prime rate.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Rylaz? Montelukast? Blame smart FDA rule for weird drug names

Turns out that drug-makers aren't idiots with a fetish for weird names. They may be ruthless monsters who charge exorbitant amounts for life-saving drugs that cost a small fraction of that amount to create, but they're not crazy when it comes to drug names.

There's a reason that the drug your doctor prescribed for your cholesterol or high blood pressure has a bizarre name: It's due to a rule of the Food and Drug Administration.

Yeah, the FDA is to blame for crazy names. Or maybe the FDA should receive credit for the crazy names because it's for a good reason. It all comes from the desire to save confusion at the pharmacy.

Actually, that's not the full story, because we often get confused by the weird names (do you remember the names of your prescriptions? I don't).

But the unusual names – for instance, among the 25 most popular drugs are the hard-to-remember and hard-to-pronounce Levothyroxine, Montelukast, Furosemide and Trazodone – come from an effort to prevent mix-ups among drugs with similar names. Anyone who has brought home Pepsi instead of Pepsid or pesto instead of pasta can understand this: What if you ask for something and the pharmacist accidentally gives you a drug with a name that sounds the same?

It could be like when Mr. Gower in "It's a Wonderful Life" nearly gave deadly drugs to someone during George Bailey's vision of an alternate future (the focus of another column).

But enough about that.

The FDA's standard is that a drug name must be 70% dissimilar from all other names in its database. That database has 36,000 drug names, so it's a challenge, one that is met when drug companies produce such products as Amlodipine and Meloxicam. Or consider the official names of drugs you've probably taken in the past year: Comirnaty and Spikevax. Those are the official names of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for COVID-19. (If  I was Moderna, I would have leaned into the official name. Spikevax is an elite vaccine name!)

Anyway, drug names must be unique. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, there are companies that earn big paydays from drug companies to compare proposed new drug names with existing ones and either attest that they're significantly different or (presumably) present an alternative.

Here's the looming problem. Will we get to a point where there are so many drugs that drug companies will run out of names? Is it possible that sometime in the future, drug names will become like passwords? If they keep coming up with these new drug names (Voxzogo, Tivdak and Rylaz were all approved by the FDA in 2021), there's a limit, right? How far away are we from a world where our drug name must have one capital letter, one lower-case letter, one letter and one symbol?

Are we headed to a future, where we call or stop in our local pharmacy and tell them we need a refill of F8jkLd$5!t?

I guess that will work, unless they have it close to their supply of F8jkLd$6!t, which could cause a mixup (although I guess F8jkLd$6!t isn't 70% different).

Just the idea makes me anxious and when that happens, I turn to ancient wisdom from Readers Digest: Laughter is the best medicine.

But according to my unofficial internet research, that isn't necessarily 70% different from nitrous oxide (laughing gas), so I hope it's OK.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Guilty pleasure songs: 10 disliked pop hits you secretly enjoy

In adulthood, I still don't want people to make fun of my music choices.

I have some ridiculous musical loves. I like Barry Manilow. I like the boy bands of the late 1990s. I think "Mmm-bop" is one of the greatest pop songs ever written.

I have other musical tastes, but they're not as amusing. But I admit this: If I'm listening to a Partridge Family song or "Hot Rod Lincoln" and someone pulls up next to me at a stoplight, I generally reach over and turn down the music. Because it's a guilty pleasure – a song I like, but feel embarrassed to do so.

You're probably similar. There are songs that you publicly mock, but if you're alone and they come on, you find yourself happy. They're guilty pleasure songs.

Here are 10 you secretly like, in alphabetical order.

"Achy, Breaky Heart," by Billy Ray Cyrus. The song was absurd. His mullet was absurd. The song was infectious. His mullet was awesome. Can we just be honest and not apologize for liking this song?

"Bye, Bye, Bye" by N'Sync. Maybe the height of the boy bands craze, this song is tremendous (and so is "I Want it That Way" by the Backstreet Boys). You like it. But dislike yourself for that fact.

"Careless Whisper" by Wham! Guilty feet ain't got no rhythm, but we still get sucked in by the song. If someone pulls up next to you while you're singing "I should have known better than to cheat a friend . . ." you'll turn this down. But you won't turn it off.

"Convoy," by C.W. McCall. He talks. He uses CB language. He proposes that a group of big rigs race across the country (never stopping for gas?) and crash through barricades. But you secretly enjoy it, right? 10-4.

"Escape (The Pina Colada Song)," by Rupert Holmes. A dumb story song about a couple unwittingly writing classified advertising notes to each other (reminder: Support your local newspaper). Two guarantees: When it comes on, you'll say it's dumb. And you'll sing the chorus.

"Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee)," by Paul Revere and the Raiders. Bubblegum pop with the perfect ending. Admit it: You enjoy hearing this every 20 years or so when it accidentally comes on.

"In the Year 2525," by Zager and Evans. This was presumably embarrassing to like in 1970 (a year after it was released) and remains so now. But you hear it and you find yourself envisioning people not needing their teeth or eyes because there's nothing to chew and no one looks at them. Another song with a great ending.

"Livin' La Vida Loca," by Ricky Martin. We all make fun of Ricky Martin. Then this song comes on and we realize how great it was (although we pretend it's not).

"Stayin' Alive," by the Bee Gees. This was widely mocked about 10 years after it was a hit and everyone still mocks it by doing the finger-pointing disco move. Then the song comes on . . . and you do the finger-pointing disco move. With joy.

"U Can't Touch This," by MC Hammer. Go ahead and complain that Hammer stole the music from "Superfreak" by Rick James. Blame Hammer for making saccharine hip-hop for white suburban kids. But you'll yell "Hammer time!" and envision him dancing in those genie pants.

There are more guilty pleasure songs – many more – but start with those 10.

Right now, you are insisting that you don't like them, but you're lying to yourself.

But maybe one day when we've learned, Cherokee nation will return.

Will return. Will return. Will return.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

It's all in a name when it comes to diet sodas

Whatever happened to diet sodas?

If you're like me (and it's best if you're not), you noticed the slow decline of diet sodas over the past few years.

Sugar-free, no-calorie sodas haven't disappeared. But "diet" sodas are apparently taboo.

Instead, we have "No Sugar" sodas. And "Zero Calorie" sodas. And other variations.

I'm famously a Type 1 diabetic (by "famously," I mean people in my immediate family know it, as do readers bored by occasional articles over the years when I've poked fun at my disease and asked for it to be named after me). That means if I drink sodas, they're of the no-sugar variety.

For most of my life, "diet" was the only word used to describe no-sugar drinks. Diet Coke. Diet Pepsi. Diet Rite. Diet 7-Up. Even Diet Shasta and Diet Cragmont (the Safeway brand until the 1990s).

But about 15 years ago, alternatives began to pop up, forcing me to read labels so I could understand whether these were replacements for the diet versions or something else. Maybe a fat-free soda? Maybe caffeine free?

The first I saw was Coke Zero. Was it zero calories? Zero carbohydrates? Zero fat? Zero caffeine? Zero Mostel? (Star of "Fiddler on the Roof," who died 45 years ago.)

I read and re-read the label to make sure I wasn't accidentally drinking regular soda.

In the past few years, it came to the point that almost no soda brands call their no-sugar drinks "diet." Apparently, younger people don't like the word diet, so it's better to call something "zero" or "no-sugar" or "zero-sugar" or "carb-NO-hydrates" (the last of those was just invented by me. Food companies are free to use it).

This is significant because, even though Millennials and members of Gen Z don't like the word "diet," they still want low-calorie, no-sugar drinks. Sugar-free drinks make up nearly 30% of carbonated drink sales in the United States, accounting for about $11 billion in sales in 2020.

As a member of the sugar-averse community (another term I just invented), I have something at stake here. I don't mind the name changes and think I look cooler drinking something called "Pepsi Max Zero-Sugar Xtreme," rather than Tab or Fresca, the diet sodas most available when I became a diabetic (both of which were marketed primarily to women who wanted to drop a few pounds).

My only request is that Coke and Pepsi and Royal Crown and Shasta and other soda manufacturers would give me a heads up, so I know which sodas I can drink. It also frees up space in my local grocery store, since it doesn't require me to stand there and read a tiny-print nutritional label.

I'm still very confused about the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero Sugar. I still don't know if Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Zero Sugar are different. But I do appreciate that soda companies continue to try new things. Some new drinks, many new names.

Those of us in the sugar-averse community stand ready for a carb-NO-hydrate drink.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Bradstradamus is back with a glimpse at what will happen in 2022

Bradstradamus is back.

Anyone familiar with history (or the History Channel) is familiar with my great-great-great (keep going) grandfather, Nostradamus. Grandpa N, as we call him, was famous for his predictions that had an eerie way of coming true.

For instance, in the years around 1460, Grandpa N made the following predictions (which came true):

"Nations will battle each other and only some will win." (Came true in the Revolutionary War. Or World War I. Or World War II. Or the World Cup of soccer.)

"Four men will succeed where others haven't." (The Beatles. Or the Los Angeles Rams' defensive line "Fearsome Foursome" of the 1960s. Or George Foreman and his grills, am I right?)

"A leader with a mustache will arise in the West." (Adolph Hitler. Or Theodore Roosevelt. Or Tom Selleck, since Hawaii is the westernmost state in the United States.)

Coincidence? Hardly. Grandpa N was amazing and because of that, I take seriously my responsibility to share with you some prognostications for 2022.

The last time Bradstradamus did this, I correctly predicted the COVID-19 pandemic (2020 prediction: "Some people will get sick and most will recover." Another correct prediction from Bradstradamus in 2020: "The author of this column will refer to himself in the third person at some point in the future." Bradstradamus made that come true. Today.)

Amazing.

With that as a precursor, here is a look ahead to what to expect in 2022:

• In late August, Californians will be warned that it could be a bad wildfire year because there was so much rain in the winter. Or so little rain. Or just the right amount. But it will be a bad wildfire season, for sure.
• You will be in a store, faced with two checkout line choices. You will pick one and the other will move faster.
• You'll be in heavy traffic and the car version of that thing in the store will happen to you. The other lane will move faster.
• While in the checkout line at that same store in the earlier prediction, you'll see a celebrity magazine and have no idea who the person on the cover is.
• A major professional athlete will succeed this year.
• On an important day in 2022, you'll wake up to see a mystifying pimple on your face and complain that pimples should disappear at age 21.
• You will read a column about what will happen in 2022. (Bingo! One prediction already is true!)
• At least once in the first two months of the year, you'll hear someone say, "How is it already 2022? Wasn't it just 2000?" It may be you who says that.
• The next COVID variant will have a side effect: We'll learn another letter in the Greek alphabet.
• You will be really hungry for specific fast food (or grocery store food) and it will disappoint you.
• Eleven months from now, you'll say, "how is 2022 almost over? It just started!"
• Some people will get sick and most will recover.
• The author of this column will refer to himself in the third person.

Bradstradamus is done. Happy New Year and don't stress too much about picking the wrong line at the store.

Reach Brad Stanhope at brad.stanhope@outlook.com.

Bringing SCIENCE to our calendar with New Year's Day in March

It is said that time is just our mind's way of making sure everything doesn't happen at once.

If so, the calendar is just a man-made way to measure the passage of time, which is artificial.

It's man-made and I say we should change it. We can throw the whole thing out.

If we want to maintain the pretense of following the Gregorian calendar (established in 1582, Tom Brady's rookie year in the NFL), we can agree on something: There's room for improvement.

That is more obvious today than any day of the year. It's the day after Christmas, nearing the end of the holiday season, but we have another holiday coming up this week.

We still have New Year's Day (and New Year's Eve).

It's another holiday after a seemingly endless series of holidays. It's there because someone long ago (Tom Brady? Maybe) decided that the new year on the man-made calendar would start seven days after Christmas.

The decisionmaker didn't account for holiday fatigue, nor for the fact that they added another day off when the weather is bad.

Can't we agree that the cavalcade of holidays (particularly the Thanksgiving-Hanukkah-Christmas-Kwanzaa-New Year's Day series) is at least one holiday too many?

My proposal is simple. It doesn't fix every calendar problem (such as the weird variation in how long "a month" is), but it fixes the biggest problem (having Christmas and New Year's Day seven days apart).

Doesn't it make more sense to start the year when spring starts (at least in the Northern Hemisphere. We could start it when fall starts in the Southern Hemisphere)?

Here is the Stanhope Change in Every Nation's Calendar Events (SCIENCE) plan: New Year's Day becomes the first day of spring (March 19, 20 or 21, depending on the year).

You don't like this? Are you disputing SCIENCE?

Imagine a world where we follow SCIENCE: New Year's Day comes at the start of spring (for 85% of the world's population), when it should. Things are growing. It's getting warmer. It's a time of renewal.

We don't need a needless middle-of-winter holiday (I realize Dec. 31 is only the 11th day of winter, but that's another column: How our seasons are wrong). Instead, we get a day off when it's starting to get warmer and nicer–or at worst, warmer, nicer days are coming.

The only potential downside is that the SCIENCE New Year's Day can fall near Easter and Passover, but according to my calculations, Easter falls within a week of March 19-21 only twice in the next 20 years. So not really a problem.

This change makes things better for us, since it spreads out holidays. It presumably makes things better for businesses, which have a shorter time to account for being understaffed in December. It's better for everyone.

The change requires only one group to modify how it works: Calendar makers would presumably make 13-month calendars that would include March twice (since the year begins March 19-21).

Would they be sad? No, it changes nothing.

This week, as you get ready to commemorate the New Year, think about how this would be in March.

It would be the same celebration, just a bigger deal. And it would be welcomed as a more special holiday.

You don't agree? Fine. You're arguing with SCIENCE.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.