Remember: It is mid-March 2004

Conversation between yours truly and his cubicle neighbor:

"Ryan!" I called out to my cubicle neighbor.

"Yeah?" Ryan responded.

"I know we haven't had any holidays yet this year, but did the 2004 Holiday Schedule ever come out?" I asked. "I'm wondering when our first day off is."

"They sent it through e-mail a few months ago," Ryan answered. "You must have missed it. Anyway, we still only get eight days of official company holidays, so you aren't missing much."

Ryan likes to be sarcastic like that. I do, too.

"Oh," I said. "Well, that's a relief. For a minute there, I was afraid the powers that be had decided to take their own philosophy to its logical conclusion and cancel holidays altogether."