Columbus Day raises questions

There are a host of serious issues plaguing the nation. This is not one of them.

I’m talking, of course, about Columbus Day. It was Monday. Did you remember? No, you didn’t.

You didn’t celebrate. You didn’t travel to Ohio. You didn’t wave Spanish flags.

Like me, you probably tried to ignore it until you found out the post office was closed.

Which brings me to my point: Columbus Day is the worst holiday ever because Columbus was the worst explorer ever.

I’m not even going to count the whole genocide of the Native Americans thing, which alone is reason to relegate Columbus to a footnote.

No, Columbus was a bad guy because he stank as an explorer. He was the worst. He’s the Paris Hilton of explorers, getting all the attention, but being completely devoid of talent or serious accomplishments and contributions.

He didn’t discover anything. Not really. He wasn’t the first person to discover America — Native Americans did that. He wasn’t the first European to discover America — Leif Erikson did that.

Heck, he didn’t even know he was in America. He thought he was in India. Shouldn’t that by itself be reason to say Columbus was a terrible, terrible explorer? What kind of explorer gets an entire continent completely wrong?

There are some who say that Columbus’ voyage was important because it proved the earth is round. Wrong.

People at the time of Columbus already knew the earth was round. They had even already estimated the earth’s size. Columbus didn’t prove anything, not even to his own people.

Even if he really proved the earth was round, wouldn’t it make more sense to actually sail around the earth? Not just blindly run into some land, declare that it’s India, and then sail back.

There are many reasons to get rid of Columbus Day. Chief among them is that it’s really, really annoying. Anyone else try to go to the bank on Monday? Yeah, I bet that was a lot of fun turning around and driving home, cursing that jerk Christopher Columbus under your breath.

Does anyone know how much money the economy loses by shutting down banks to worship Columbus each year? I don’t either, but I bet it’s a lot.

I’d probably be fine keeping a holiday in place of Columbus Day, but it would need to be changed to something more relevant and worthwhile. Like Comfortable Pants Day. Now that’s something that would look good on the second Monday in October.

Christopher Columbus was not only a terrible explorer, but he’s a terrible reason to take the day off.

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