One of the great joys of being finished with school and firmly ensconced in the workaday world is finally being able to enjoy Labor Day. During your school years, Labor Day is a day of fear and dread - the end of summer’s once seemingly endless freedom and the return of daily drudgery and responsibility. No one (except for those insane handful of students who actually enjoyed school) can relax and enjoy the final day of summer. When I was a kid, it was even worse because we only had three television channels, one of which would always show the Jerry Lewis Telethon. There’s nothing to compound the abject misery of an impending school year for a kid than being forced to watch Shecky Greene and Andy Williams all day.

Now that I’m a salary slave, Labor Day is a treat - the only respite from work until the holiday season starts, and a sign that the bleary, woozy August heat will finally be leaving to be replaced by the crisp, cool early fall. Once you finally get conditioned to the fact that you'll be working almost every day of your life until you're too old and feeble to enjoy your life any more, something as small and insignificant as a three day weekend feels like a deep blue lake in the middle of the Sahara. And instead of being forced to watch the telethon, I can watch marathons of horrible movies from the 80s. (OK, so the holiday could still use some improvement, but it’s much better than it was.)