Festival of Intercourse

The Festival of Intercourse marks both a day and a time of year when people appreciate the importance of diversity, togetherness, and community. This appreciation is roughly US$24 and is usually in the form of goods; less so in the form of services.

The origin of the holiday dates back to the tribal cohesion, attachment, and diversification felt as homo sapiens finally succeeded in the genocide of homo erectus. Since this time, there have been various ceremonies and revelries commemorating the event, each reflecting the unique qualities of the differing human sects. Modern thinking has been pushing to standardize the Festival, combining the distinct celebrations into a single, uniform event that occurs on a single date; however, as no human actually knows when homo erectus was finally finished off, this has proven more difficult than anticipated. Furthermore, adherents of the traditional methods have been campaigning vigorously to maintain the status quo and keep the "Course in Intercourse"—despite their not being in any way clear on what that entailed.

What it may entail is keeping The Day of the Festival of Intercourse as the 13th Wednesday after the waxing half-moon in the month of the current leader's birth—a date some one, at some time, must have thought perfectly reasonable to define. However, whatever, or whoever this one may, or indeed may not, have been thinking, the date stuck and led to a series of Intercourse Days falling transiently throughout the year: in the democracies the day shifts any time a leader gets voted out, while in the dictatorships the day shifts due to a combination of coups, upheavals, and monarchial narcissism.

Whatever the form of government, Festival of Intercourse Day always marks a legal holiday on which shops are to be closed, merchants are to stay home, and people are to be with their family (whether or not they want to be with them, like to be with them, or even know who they are to be with them). Additionally and by Official Decree®, everyone is supposed to be happy on Intercourse Day—anyone who isn't jovial is to be repeatedly beaten until they are.

Unofficially—but by common practice— Intercourse Season is taken to begin 2 days before Intercourse Day; however, retailers convinced that more Intercourse means more money (here they apply the typical managerial logic that since profits always soar during Intercourse Season, an extension of the Season implies an extension of the soaring profits) have been pushing the Season earlier by 0.25 to nearly 0.50 days. While common consensus is that the retailers are callously extending the season too far, it is also the consensus that the problem will sort itself out when a perfectly normal, sensible member of the public is finally driven completely and utterly bonkers by overexposure to Intercourse Season Music—with the resulting mass massacre accompanying such a holiday-induced insanity. Meanwhile, slightly more clever retailers have attempted, with meager success, to introduce a separate holiday called "Coursival" having a season lasting up to two months.