fracas

Fracas is bossy, and two days ago, I decided to dub today, October 1, 2008, Be Nice to Daddy Papersurfer Day. I sent out the word in my daily fuel to well over one hundred people… because I decided if Hallmark can just create days to suit their wishes, so can I.

I have to start this celebration though, by letting the world the small assortment of people who show up here to actually read every day know I am sorely disappointed in Google and will spend today considering its relevance as a useful search engine.

You see, for me, it’s morning noon, but for the British… well, it’s already evening. Knowing this, last night I was up late looking for bright and witty ideas for how I could be nice to Daddy Papersurfer today.

He is a Brit you know.

Not ‘Brit’ as in  Britney Spears… or even a Britney Spears fan (though I’m not sure, he might be…) but rather, ‘Brit’ as in a person that lives in the U.K.

I Googled ‘How to be nice to the British‘ and did not find even one link on the first page, to any site dedicated to being nice to the British.

I tried again… with ‘How to be nice to a Brit’ and again, though I did find several references to Brit the Spears… I did not find even one link on the first page, to any site dedicated to being nice to a Brit as in a British person.

Desperately, my fingers flew across the keyboard attempting several other searches:

How to impress the British
How to surprise the British

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

At the Gifts for the British search page, I did find some ideas of things I could buy for Daddy Papersurfer, but seeing as how I’m already several hours behind, there’s not much hope a gift would arrive in time.

I thought about how perhaps some people might not fully appreciate the British, and perhaps I could be nice to Daddy Papersurfer by helping others understand and come to love the British, just as I have. I tried ‘How to make people like the British’ and the results were more hopeful. Right there at the top of the page was:

How to make people believe you’re British

Being fearful of offending him though, I decided that one could be a negative, expecting it to be nothing but instructions on how to poke fun at the British. That wouldn’t do. This was Be Nice to Daddy Papersurfer Day and poking fun at him simply would not do.

(It does look like an entertaining page though…)

I was getting rather frustrated as the clock ticked away, and then it hit me.

Why don’t I just forget about all the gimmicks and the puns and the fun… and just… just…

be nice?

After all, every other day of the year is filled with not just I, but interweave folks from the world over, poking fun, teasing and generally giving the old git a serious run for his bloggy money. We take every post he writes, and use it as an opportunity to poke him in the ribs, giggle and snigger… all at his expense.

(It’s quite fun actually.)

He takes it all, joins in and always has the wittiest of retorts, never letting any of our teasing get the better of him.

(At least to our knowledge.)

So today, he deserves a good word or two from every one of us out there, who have ever been guilty of the above. I’m going to, at the risk of embarrassing him, be nice to Daddy Papersurfer by showing you the page I finally found at Google.

Won’t you too, please take a moment or two, to leave a lovely thought (no teasing) here for the nicest old git on any side of any pond.

(Just don’t get used to this elder papersurfer… Be Nice to Daddy Papersurfer Day is only once a year.)