May Day! It’s a holiday, right? Actually, it represents different things all over the world. It’s known as Pagan holiday, a celebration of  leis in Hawaii, and some sort of uprising surrounding long working hours back in the late 1800’s… if you really want to know more, you can start your research here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day.
Whenever I think of May Day, I always think of the movie Midway, the 1976 war film depicting the turning point of WWII, which was the Battle of Midway. This blockbuster featured a star-studded cast including the talents of Edward Albert, James Coburn, Henry Fonda, Charlton Heston, Robert Wagner, Pat Morita, Tom Selleck, and… Erik Estrada (this was after his big breakthrough role in Airport ’75 but before his stardom catapulting turn on CHiPs).
Anyway, the one and only thing I remember from this movie – other than soaring airplane sounds and bombs scoring direct hits – was one of the characters yelling “MAYDAY” from his cockpit. I recall being annoyed by it at the tender age of eight, thinking why would anyone scream out “MAYDAY” as their plane took a nose dive toward the planet instead of screaming out something like “I love you, Janet!” or “I’ll always regret not finishing college” or a quick shout-out to the Man Upstairs to save your weary soul. But no. It was MAYDAY. It wasn’t until I was in high school in Mrs. Ratchford’s French I class that I learned about the verb aider, which means to help, and is conjugated as follows:
I help – j’aide; You help – tu aides; we help – nous aidons; you (plural) help – vous aidez… a-HA! “Aidez” sounds like “AYDAY”. And the way the French implore you to help them is by saying “m’aidez”, translating to “help me”, which if you Americanize it turns into MAYDAY. Honestly, though, I simply cannot imagine any person of French descent asking for help in this way. They are probably still peeved with us for bastardizing their language and refuse to use the phrase, even if one of their limbs gets blown off.
Limbless and Profusely Bleeding French Man: “Forget eeet. I refuze to ask for zee help from you, you Americain Pig. You slaughtered our beautiful “m’aidez” and I would rather bleed to death than to ask for you to aide moi. Away with you.”
American Pig: (shoving hands in front pockets of his jeans and casually shrugging his shoulders), “Cool”.
American Pig steps over Limbless and Profusely Bleeding French Man and saunters down the street into a swirling mist of rain, whistling a French tune. A lone accordion fades in and joins in with the song, eventually overtaking the American Pig’s whistling. Camera pans to closeup of Limbless and Profusely Bleeding French Man as he silently mouths “MAYDAY”, expels his last breath and closes eyes.
Music swells. Fade to Black.
Ben is still in the hospital. I have a bit of a scratchy throat so Madeline and I are steering clear of the hospital today. I did phone in and talked to the Bean for a couple of minutes. He’s not saying much because he still is in quite a lot of pain, but at least he didn’t refuse to take my call like he did yesterday. He groaned a bit when I explained that I wasn’t feeling 100% and wouldn’t be coming to see him today. I hate that I can’t go, but I simply cannot risk getting him – or any other kiddos on the oncology unit – sick. So, Madeline and I are working on crafts. I may or may not do some laundry. I might sort through clothes and make a Goodwill run. Or, I just might lay in bed all day and watch “Edward Scissorhands” for the gazillionth time. Madeline just LOVES her some Tim Burton. I just LOVES me some Johnny Depp.
And if Johnny Depp can’t MAYDAY me through this day then I’m not sure who can.
Stronger Than I Look 