This past week, I was planning an important business meeting with a hard-to-pin-down contact.

"How 'bout next Monday at three?" I said, jotting it in my calendar.

" My office is closed that day," he replied.

"Really?" I asked, thinking he was ditching me (again). "Why?"

"Let's see. … Here it is — Washington's Birthday. Huh, who knew?"

I groaned. Another one of those Monday holidays half of Americans get off, but the other half don't even see coming. I flipped through my datebook. Columbus Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day — they're spread out across the year, awkward little extended weekends that aren't long enough to go anywhere fun. For a lot of us, they're just days when you don't get mail and can't cash a check. Where I live, the beer store is closed, too, leaving me standing in the parking lot, shaking like someone with wet hands who accidentally touched a toaster.

But that morning I'd seen a news story with the shocking statistic that Americans failed to take an estimated 438 million earned vacation days in 2007. According to a Harris poll, people refuse to take time off for a number of reasons, but mostly because they don't want to look like slackers. It's sad because, as a country, we get fewer days off than most other developed nations. In France, for instance, they get so much vacation time every year that some people don't even know where their office is.

An idea came to me. A lot of those Monday holidays have outlived their purpose. Very few people got up on February 19, looked at the calendar and thought warmly of good ol' George Washington. Instead, they chewed their knuckles, wondering how they were going to survive a day off when their kids had off from school, too. And very few people will sit at home on October 13, smile to themselves and say, "Thanks, Chris Columbus, for discovering America!" It's not as if America was going to get away if he didn't grab it.

As Europe grew more and more crowded, I'll bet someone would have decided to go for a long boat ride and would have eventually bumped into the Jersey shore. And Veteran's Day, probably the one day when you ought to engage in a bit of revering, well, I'll bet you didn't even put out your flag, did you?

Why not, instead, roll all those holidays into a big "National Holiday" week? We could do it in July, when, let's face it, you're not getting much done at work anyway. We'd call it "Take a Load Off, America!" week. The entire country would simply take a break for five whole days. Nobody would do anything if they didn't want to. There'd be nowhere to go because nothing would be open. You'd have to make a choice between sitting outside in a lawn chair, or taking the dog for a walk. You could play board games with your kids, something you always promise you'll do, but never get around to. There'd be nothing on TV, but, unfortunately, there never is during the summer anyway.

All the politicians in Washington would take the entire week off because, in case you didn't get the memo, none of them work in July anyway. We wouldn't even have to tell the president about this because he'd already be at his vacation home. The best part is: It wouldn't cost the country or our national productivity a dime because we'd just shift all those Monday holidays over.

The one group that would be upset about this is, of course, school kids. I don't know about you, but I don't really care what they think. They get chauffeured everywhere they go, are served three meals a day and have the entire summer off. Most days when I get home from work, my own kids have managed to do nothing of note except polish off all the snack food I was counting on for later.

If your kids get upset about missing all those Monday holidays, just tell them it'll be worth it come July, when we all take an entire week off together. You could even promise them that board game you've been putting off.

I bet they'll mark their calendars.

To find out more about Peter McKay, please visit www.creators.com.

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