What Weekends Are For

I heard in college that the two-day weekend was an American invention.

It happened back in New Amsterdam, where all the Christians ran the markets and all the Jews ran the banks.

The banks were closed on Saturday.
The markets were closed on Sunday.

And there it is: the two-day American weekend.

Except, it's not that way, anyway. With two days of rest, there's really just two half-days of rest. There is no full day of rest.

There is just Saturday, for the laundry,
And Sunday, for the garden.

When I stopped to consider
What weekends are for,
I came to realize
I was doing.

I would rather be here now.