This week contains a slew of interesting National Day days. You know them as sometimes bizarre made-up national holidays like National North Dakota Day, otherwise known as this Saturday, National Garlic Day (also Saturday) and — I promise this one is real, too — National Lima Bean Respect Day on Sunday.

I can’t speak for everyone, but that’s a level of neediness that makes me lose what little respect I had for lima beans. Not content to be recognized on National Bean Day with the others on Jan. 6, they needed their own day to brood about how little respect they get.

Sunday is also 420 Day, a day on which people are supposed to celebrate cannabis. I think you’d have to already be celebrating with marijuana in order to be thinking about whether or not lima beans are getting enough respect.

Friday is National Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet Day, brought to life in 2019, also the expiration year on a lot of stuff in my medicine cabinet. You’d be forgiven for not knowing about a lot of these national days. There was a National Nothing Day earlier this year, on Jan. 16, which I heard absolutely zilch about. January is also home to National Dress Up Your Pet Day (Jan. 14), about which I heard not a peep.

If you and/or your pet are sad you missed those occasions, perhaps you will find comfort on National Hug a Plumber Day, which is still ahead on Friday, April 25. Alas, National Hug a Newsperson Day was back on April 4.

Yes, these holidays really exist, along with National Crawfish Day and National High Five Day, both of which are on Thursday this week. That day is also National Cheeseball Day.

I for one have questions. Are national days just made up, or is there some sort of overpaid lobbying group wielding undue power in the halls of wherever national days are determined?

Secondly, how would you high five a crawfish, or as they’re more commonly called here, crawdads? They’re so low at the bottom of river muck, and they have claws. I mean, I’m open-minded and willing to give it a try when I start hiking to my preferred Deschutes River swimming hole, where there is always the risk of stepping on a crawdad.

Ohhhh. Maybe that’s how you high five them, using your foot, like, “Yo, Happy High Five Day, crawdad! A little toenail fungus coming your way!”

According to the National Day Calendar, where you can find info about these and other holidays, National High Five Day was created in 2002 by, surprise, college students. (I wonder if 420 Day was involved somehow?) The three attended the University of Virginia, and one of them, Sam Miotke, hailed from Corvallis. Good job, Sam! High five!

So yes, a lot of these days are made up, but they’re made up by people. According to AI results I just got when I Googled “National Make Up Stuff Day,” there is no such day celebrating making stuff up, but there is a National Beautician’s Day, June 26, which I know because stupid AI thought that’s what I was searching for when it “saw” the words “make up.” I’m glad to know writing jobs will be safe a little longer.

There may not be a National Make Up Stuff Day, but good news! There IS a National Make Up Your Own Holiday Day. But also, bad news, at least if you have your mind set on creating a national holiday. It took place a few weeks ago, on March 26.

Meanwhile, Monday, April 21, is among the most delicious, if not most important, of national days, yet I bet you’d never guess what it is, unless your guess is that it’s National Chocolate-Covered Cashews Day, because guess what? It is National Chocolate-Covered Cashews Day. That’s just nuts.

“But, David, what about the columnists?” you ask. Great question. As the National Society of Newspaper Columnists would have it, Friday, April 18, is one of the most important, if not most delicious, of the National Days. Yes, that’s right, it’s National Columnists’ Day, and now you know it, thanks to a columnist, who learned it from the internet and happens to love chocolate-covered cashews, preferably dark chocolate.

I suppose columnists deserve National Columnists’ Day, and dark chocolate-covered cashews, because being a columnist is such hard work, work that requires them to spout their thoughts approximately once or twice a week, depending on the publication for which they spout.

Really, I don’t know how columnists who have actual opinions about important things do it. They have to be just making them up sometimes, right?

Anyway, to readers, beauticians, plumbers and crawdads alike, happy National Crawfish, High Five, Cheeseball, Columnists’, Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet, 420 and Chocolate-Covered Cashews days!

Not you, lima beans. Simmer down.