The second day of January

It’s time for another thrilling installment of THIS DAY IN HISTORY…istory….istory.

On January 2, 1590, Spain's King Phillip II devised a new form of torture for insurrectionists and heretics. After two weeks of allowing all his courtiers and royal subjects to stay up late, sleep in, and hang out in their pajamas all day doing nothing but reading and playing computer games 16th century pebble-tossing games, Phillip arose early, yanked everyone out of bed before the sunrise, forced them to eat Frosted Flakes, put them in scratchy new pants, and marched them off to be chained to the racks at the local public school. All of this he did while threatening severe penalties (such as loss of pebble-tossing privileges) for any and all whiners because he was in a bad mood, having given up sugar the day before. And thus the Spanish Inquisition was born.

“A Sonnet in which I use Extra Syllables and Completely Cheat on the Rhyme Scheme Because I’m Grouchy” by Julie Barrett Browning

How do I hate thee January? Let me count the ways.
I hate thee to the depth of my frozen toes and finger tips
And the breadth of my Christmas-fudge hips
And height of the stack of bills we have to pay.
I hate thee for thy plethora of manipulative ads
That exploit our new goals to be fit and thin
To have everything organized into its proper, color-coordinated, fabric-lined, organic wicker bin
As if health and order were merely passing fads.
I’m already cold and tired and craving more light
And we still have three interminable months to go -
Eighty-eight more gloomy days and frigid nights
Before the thaw begins to crack the status quo snow. So,
Since that really is simply too long to wait,
Please just wake me up in April. I’m going to hibernate.