“A case of the Mondays.”  ”Nobody likes a Monday.” Why does Monday always get such a bad rap? Yes, it is the FIRST day of the work week, but I disagree that it is the WORST day of the work week. Let’s take a closer look.

I’m not going to pretend to be one of those eternal optimists who vomits sunshine and says that a Monday is another opportunity to turn it around, or a start to another great week. I get where the distaste for Monday’s comes from. The impending feeling of doom you get late at Sunday night knowing you have to go back to work the next day. Getting up in the morning with 5 full work days standing between you and the weekend. Having to hear idiots mumble infuriating phrases like “back to the grind” or “getting back in the swing of things”.  The annoying co-workers who pretend to care how your weekend was, and your obligation to feign interest back. I get it, Mondays aren’t great. But they are NOT the worst day of the week.

For starters, Mondays often times are part of three-day weekends (Labor Day, Memorial Day, President’s Day), which is the equivalent of summer vacation in the working world. Three days away from the office? (And don’t try to tell me you didn’t duck out early on the Friday beforehand too.) Sign me up for that over a mundane midweek day anytime. Also, to help you cope with another week of work/class/sitting on your unemployed ass wishing you had a job, Mondays seem to be a pretty stellar TV night. I’m not a huge TV show guy, but one of the shows that I actually do watch, 24, is always on Monday nights. And how could I forget Monday Night Football (thank you ESPN), which is like a mini-holiday 17 weeks out of the year. MNF alone leads to a multitude of ways to enjoy the day: you can always find great specials like all-you-can-eat wings, cheap beer, or free t-shirts from scantily clothed promotion girls; the bars are usually pretty crowded and sociable, with people acting less pretentious and without their guards up like they do on Friday and Saturday nights; and last, but certainly not least, one of my favorite things, girls in football jerseys (as long as they aren’t wearing the same size as their favorite player).

Lastly, nobody has high expectations for a Monday. You can play “The Monday Card” at work, and even if it doesn’t get you completely off the hook, it definitely mitigates the damage. Late to work? “Ugh, I’m really sorry; couldn’t get out of bed this morning, you know how Monday mornings are.” Have a less-than-productive day? “Sorry, I’m still trying to get organized, it’s only Monday.” You can even borrow a line from those a-holes around the office to suck up to your boss, “It’ll be fine once I ‘get back in the swing of things.’” Think about your typical Monday morning. As long as you steer clear from the one or two overachievers who showed up early and spew propaganda-ish bullshit about how it’s a great day, you will find that most people are equally miserable, don’t want to be there, and aren’t going to give you shit (if you work for one of the aforementioned douches, you might want to find a new job, or make whip-it’s a habitual part of your pre-work routine). Monday morning’s low expectations enable you to take an early coffee break, read the paper, or catch up on your usual facebooking/FML-ing/internet surfing that you deviated from when you weren’t forced to be in front of a computer over the weekend. Generally, by the time you are done with all that, or swapping weekend stories with the co-workers whom you don’t despise, the coffee has already kicked in, you have wasted sufficient time, and your introduction back into the work week has become that much less painful.

So if Monday isn’t the worst day of the week, what is? Well, the general consensus is that the later in the week, the better, because you are closer to the weekend. If Monday, the very first day of the week, isn’t the worst, what day is? That’s right, I’m looking at you, Tuesday, you son-of-a-bitch. What do you have to offer? Monday I can still be riding high from a great weekend, get away with some slacking at work, have a football game to watch, and hit up the town for a cheap and fun night. Tuesday, whatdya got for me? Is there a Tuesday night football? If I am unproductive at work 2 days in a row is it really going to go unnoticed? Do you ever get off work on a random Tuesday? Does anybody go out on a Tuesday? The answers are nothing, no, no, no, and, you guessed it, NO! Tuesdays are nothing days. They suck. On a Tuesday morning, you are still 4 days away from the weekend, you are now fully entrenched in the work week, and there is nothing to do that night. If you think it sucks coming back to work on a Monday after a 2-day weekend, you know that a Tuesday after a 3-day weekend is like surgery without anesthesia…downright painful.

So enough of the Monday hate. Tuesday is the real enemy…and those people who call Wednesday “hump day.”