I've always considered Sundays to be one of the most boring days of the week. There's nothing much to do and if you do try and go out, you'll find that most places have closed for the day, probably so that the owners can take their shrieking offspring to the nice place you were considering visiting for a walk. I suppose the dreaded, dull Sunday would be far worse if you lived in the Western Isles. You can't even hang your washing out without incurring the pissed off hand of God. Surely there must be better things for God to be doing? Is the hanging of washing on a Sunday really that bad? Why is the “day of rest” essentially a bang your head against the wall till you pass out because anything is better than doing nothing day?
It's a long established irritation that's been in places for centuries and only now are we beginning to see cracks emerge in the walls of Sunday boredom. However, these cracks aren't anywhere near big enough. More people need to start banging their heads against the Sunday wall if we want to have any hope of breaking it. Unfortunately, merely banging your head against the wall is a pretty ineffective means of breaking it so I'm going to bring a sledgehammer to the proceedings in the guise of my Sunday Reform.
Like I say, some cracks have already formed so perhaps we should capitalise on what's already been done to erode the day of rest. The best example of this in this part of Scotland are 24 hour supermarkets. Unlike everywhere else in the UK (from what I've been led to believe, perhaps the larger conurbations like London and Birmingham see sense), Scotland keeps it's 24 hour supermarkets open throughout Sunday, they don't close. In the past, you had to wait till church finished before you could by alcohol on a Sunday. Since the introduction of the 10am till 10pm system, Sunday has seen the back of that highly unfair and insulting practise as the 10-10 system applies to every day of the week, no more exceptions. This is how things should be.
Most shops are beginning to see sense and are extending their Sunday opening hours, however, most places still don't have a full day's trading. This should be changed – my ideal vision for Sunday one where it's treated the same as a Saturday. Of course, I actually want to see the concept of the weekend scrapped entirely but let's focus on one thing at a time here.
So what am I looking for? What I'd like to see happen is the inclusion of essential services into the list of what opens on a Sunday. Let's say you have a parcel you want to post. Oh look, it's a Sunday, I can't do anything about it till tomorrow. Then when you do go to the post office on a Monday, it's full of old people standing on your heels in the hopes that they'll get their pensions faster. Let's look at this another way, say you've ordered something from Amazon. You order it on the Thursday in the hopes it'll come by Saturday. Saturday comes but it's not arrived. At this point it's not as simple as going “ach well, there's always tomorrow” because tomorrow is a waste of a day. Then, because there's a backlog due to the Sunday slacking, you end up waiting till Tuesday. If the postal service worked on a Sunday, not only would they take in more money from those who can't make it in during the week but it'd also create more jobs as they'd need more postmen to collect and deliver that day.
That's the postal service dealt with. Hopefully my idea of a Sunday reform is sounding more inviting by now? What else should operate on a Sunday? Consider this, you notice there's something wrong with you, it's not too major but you want to get it checked out in case it's something that could turn nasty. You phone for a doctor's appointment only to find that you have to wait up to two weeks to be seen. This actually happened to me once, it was around the time of the Royal Wedding last year which happened to coincide with the early May bank holiday. Most people had four days off that weekend so when I wanted to make an appointment to get something seen to, I was told it was going to be at least two weeks due to the backlog of people. When you think about it, that's an insult. I'm not one of these people that sits and badmouths the NHS but that really was pathetic. Some people I don't know are getting married and for some reason there's a Monday holiday so I have to wait till what's wrong with me becomes a serious issue before it'll get looked at. Thankfully it didn't turn out to be anything that some antibiotics couldn't fix but infections aren't something you want to allow to fester.
Of course, these places currently don't open on Saturdays either but with my Sunday reform, you'd be able to get a doctor's appointment on any day of the week. Again, this is something that'd benefit a lot of people and it'd create more jobs due to longer opening hours. There are multiple positive themes that run throughout the Sunday reform and job creation is one of them. This would be especially useful just now. There are many other examples of useful places and public services which, if they opened on a Sunday would hugely benefit the economy. However, once I get into too much detail about this stuff, it becomes dry and boring, kind of like Sundays themselves so let's move on.
Why are Sundays the way they are? Our modern snooze-fest is a continuation of the day of rest concept that's popular amongst Christians and by day of rest, they mean dress up in your best suit, go to church and then spend the rest of the day wishing you were allowed to do something more interesting. However, those of us who aren't religious still have to put up with this, although for a lot of people, Sunday is just a lazy day where you can recover from being a Saturday night fanny down at the local nightclub.
Is it not about time that modern religion was given the same status as ancient Greek mythology? You look at a story from that time period and you recognise it as fiction so why can't the same be true today? The universe is full of wonder and intrigue. Why discredit such an interesting and awe inspiring topic such as wonders of the universe by claiming it's all the result of God? Surely the actual answers as to why things are the way they are far more inspired than simply giving credit to a fictional character?
Realistically, the only way Sunday reform could ever happen is if we removed the outdated concepts and ideas of religion. That way, most of the resistance to such an idea would be removed and we'd finally be able to settle upon a more modern and up to date way of living. A way that would perhaps take a while to for people to fully accept but once it's been established, could you honestly tell me that you'd go back? There's only one way to find out. Join me by picking up your nearest sledgehammer and knocking down the walls that hold Sunday up. You might be surprised at how much light is let through.
