The Obituary
My weekend had a great run. It passed away peacefully Sunday night from natural causes — specifically, the cause was Monday approaching at full speed with no intention of slowing down. It was 48 hours old. It is survived by a pile of laundry, three unanswered texts, and a to-do list that will now never be completed.
The weekend lived fully, if briefly. It saw naps. It saw snacks. It saw an entire season of a show in one sitting, which doctors are calling "impressive but concerning." It did not see the gym, the grocery store, or any of the productive things it had promised itself on Friday. It will be remembered fondly and inaccurately.
Funeral Services at 8 AM Sharp
Funeral services will be held at 8 AM Monday, graveside, at my desk. Attire is business casual and grief. The eulogy will be delivered by my alarm clock, which has no sympathy and never has. Pallbearers will be my unread emails, carrying the casket of my free time to its final resting place: the work week.
There will be no open casket, because the weekend's final hours were not dignified. Witnesses report it spent Sunday evening stress-eating cereal and refreshing the clock, whispering "not yet, not yet" as the hours slipped away.
In Lieu of Flowers
In lieu of flowers, please send coffee — large, black, no judgment — and a three-day weekend, which is the only known cure for this condition. Donations may also be made to the "Pretend Monday Is Still Sunday" foundation, a nonprofit I just invented that accepts contributions in the form of hitting snooze.
The family requests privacy during this difficult time, by which I mean please do not schedule any meetings before 10 AM. The weekend is gone. Long live the weekend. See you Friday.
The Obituary
The weekend is survived by its grieving owner, forty-seven unread emails, and a laundry pile that has achieved sentience. In lieu of flowers, the family requests coffee, a three-day weekend, and for nobody to say "so, did you do anything fun?" at the office on Monday morning. Fun was had. Fun is over. Fun has left the building and will not be returning until Friday at 5 PM sharp.
Close friends of the deceased recall its final hours fondly. "It started so strong," one mourner said, dabbing her eyes with a pizza-stained napkin. "Saturday morning we had plans. Big plans. By Sunday afternoon we were watching a documentary about competitive cheese-rolling and calling it self-care." The weekend lived fast, died young, and left a beautiful corpse of unwashed dishes.
The Monday After
Funeral services were held at 8 AM Monday in a fluorescent-lit conference room. Attendance was mandatory. The eulogy was delivered by a manager who said "let's hit the ground running this week," which witnesses described as "a real slap in the face to the grieving process." A moment of silence was observed, during which everyone checked their phones.
In the end, we buried the weekend in the backyard of our memory, next to all the other weekends, and went back inside to answer emails. But take heart: a new weekend is already on the way. It arrives Friday. It will be beautiful. And we will absolutely, definitely make the most of it this time. Probably. Maybe. We'll see how tired we are.