Here’s an oxymoron for you: Happy Grouch Day! Yes indeed. Yesterday, Tuesday, Oct. 15, was National Grouch Day. Today, Oct. 16, is National Boss’s Day, which I suppose in some cases (but certainly not mine!) could be one and the same. Happy National Grouchy Boss Day!

Who comes up with this stuff? My first thought, of course, is that some giant greeting card conglomerate like Hallmark or American Greetings continually creates holidays and gets them registered in the big holiday registration office in the sky so that people constantly feel as if they have to buy cards to acknowledge said day.

But Grouch Day? Who’s going to buy a Grouch Day card? And who’s going to want to receive one? What good can possibly come out of pointing out to someone that they’re really negative and ornery? No good, I say.

Being the hard-core investigative reporter that I am, I attempted to find out where the origins of National Grouch Day started. I couldn’t find anything specific to Grouch Day, but surfing the Web, I came across a really irritating site – complete with a sound link and a jaunty little tune that would make a grouch out of absolutely anyone, even a syrupy sweet holiday lover.

“October 15 may be National Grouch Day,” the site reads, “but that doesn’t mean you’re required to be one! Happy Grouch Day!” Featured on the site is a cartoon character (that’s supposed to look endearingly cute and angry at the same time) of a man with way-furrowed eyebrows, a mouth bigger than the rest of his body and fists held aggressively in the air. It looks like he’s screaming. What fun. As long as we’re going to commemorate grouches, why not celebrate Road Rage Day? How about Bad Neighbor Day? Oh boy!

The web wasn’t helping me out much with my deep research, so I turned to the dictionary. According to mine, a grouch is a “sulky or morose person.” That sounds like depression to me. Hey, I know … Happy Depression Day!

My own take on a grouch is someone who has a rough, tough exterior but is sweet and kind way inside. You know, Oscar on Sesame Street. Scrooge comes to mind: the nasty, unfeeling, slave-driving, curmudgeonly old boss who really ends up to be a warm and caring person once he gets scared out of his pants by the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future.

To me, a grouch is the person who seems one-dimensionally bummed all the time, until you’re able to somehow see that there’s more underneath than what appears.

But, back to this National Grouch Day and the whole fascination we seem to have with creating holidays out of thin air. Earlier this week was Columbus Day, Oct. 14, which is now becoming known as Discovers’ Day, partially because no one’s really sure if Columbus really did discover America, and partially because historians have uncovered some very nasty stuff about Columbus and his troops doing absolutely heinous things to innocent people.

And hold onto your hats because my favorite for this month is Oct. 30: Look in the Back of Your Refrigerator Day. “What day is scarier than Halloween?” says the holiday Web site, which comes complete with a retro cartoon of a woman looking into her refrigerator. As she opens the fridge, her face deforms into a mask of horror and fear. The spooky music in the background is a nice plus.

Upon deeper probing, I found a Web site that details every single day of the year and what holidays, birthdays and events occur on it. Yesterday might have been National Grouch Day, and today might be National Boss’s Day, but it’s also World Food Day, National Roast Pheasant Day, and, get this, Ether Day.

The moral to our story? Every day is a holiday, and if you don’t believe it, just check out dailyglobe.com.

Carrie Click is a Post Independent staff writer.