Mulligan Night
This year, one of my favorite cultural traditions, “Mulligan Night”, falls on the same night as the more well known holiday of “Halloween”. It is also a Saturday night, so it likely that a lot of people will unknowingly be attending Mulligan Night parties. Thus I feel obligated to explain the rules of Mulligan Night so that no one will be caught unawares.
Mulligan Night (also sometimes called “do-over” or “fall-back” night, or hour) refers to the fact that, in jurisdictions practicing the custom of daylight savings time, on a particular Autumn evening, the clock is officially turned back one hour. This causes an hour of time to be erased and redone. This strange custom is based on a primitive societal belief that the laws of man are powerful enough to alter the normal flow of time. Daylight Savings Time is, therefor, on par with attempts to legislate the value of Pi, in demonstrating the hubris of legislation.
Like all over-reaching laws, this one creates unintended side effects. Fortunately, in this case, these side effects can be a lot of fun. Because society believes that this hour disappears, all lingering social consequences must also disappear. Anything embarrassing that may happen during this “lost hour” is officially erased.
To see why this is true, consider the legal concept of “alibi.”
If a bank robbery occurs at 1:30 AM on Nov 1st, and I can prove conclusively that at 1:30 AM on Nov 1st, I was 50 miles away, having a drink at a bar with a dozen unimpeachable witnesses, I am off the hook. I couldn’t possibly have done it. If the prosecution tries to insist that 1:30 AM actually happened twice that night, this is just going to confuse the jury and is unlikely to lead to conviction. Of course, any lingering physical evidence can still be an issue. If the stolen money is found under my bed, or the prosecutor can produce recorded images of me with my ear pressed against a vault door as I rotate the tumblers, then I am still likely to get convicted, despite my clever alibi.
All of the above leads us to the rules of a Mulligan Night Party:
- 0.) A Mulligan Night party can only happen once a year. (Although God is Dead Day has similar aspects) Mulligan night usually happens wherever Daylight Savings Time is practiced, on whatever night it ends and the clocks are officially turned back. However, like all holidays, it is somewhat permissible to move the night of celebration by a few days to accommodate other scheduling issues. Furthermore, ex-patriots are permitted to celebrate Mulligan Night, even if they happen to be in a country that does not believe political officials posses magical powers allowing them to control the flow of time.
- 1.) Mulligan night should be officially announced. People will react differently when they know that they are not socially responsible for their actions. So in order to maximize fun, everyone at the party should be made aware when the lost hour is starting. Five minutes before (usually 12:55 am) the host of the party should announce that the “lost hour” is about to commence and ask everyone to remember where they are standing and what they are doing. This is also a good opportunity to explain Mulligan Night to the woefully uninformed.
- 2.) No cameras or other recording devices. Since documentation of the events can ruin the illusion that “it never happened”, technology for producing such documentation is discouraged during the “lost hour”.
- 3.) No social repercussions. Since the laws of society have deemed that the “lost hour” never happen, there shall be no social repercussions. This is the fun part of Mulligan Night. It is an opportunity to do anything that you would really like to do, but would normally feel inhibited from doing during for fear of lingering social stigma. We spend most of our lives projecting a fictitious consistency of behavior that conforms to some social norm – during the “lost hour” you are free from that – you can do whatever you really want to do.
- 4.) Beware of lasting effects. If someone gets pregnant or seriously injured, it is quite likely that someone else will still be held responsible the next morning. This may also apply to any psychological trauma deep enough that it goes beyond the level of mere social embarrassment. So try to retain some level of good judgment.
- 5.) Mulligan night should be officially ended. At the end of the “lost hour”, the host of the party should ask everyone to return to exactly where they were and what they were doing when it started. The clock is then rolled back and things proceed as if nothing had happened. (Optionally, the host can then declare that “lost hour” rules still apply for the rest of the night – that the record will be again wiped clean in the morning.)
And that’s it. Have fun!