Pudding, Paw-Grabs, and Peaceful Lunches: A Tuesday Worth Celebrating

Well folks, it’s Tuesday again. That awkward little weekday that sits there silently in your calendar, trying not to make eye contact while you wait for Friday like it owes you money. But lucky for us, June 24 gives us more than just an excuse to microwave leftovers and resent our coworkers. It gives us three—count ’em, three—delightfully weird holidays: National Chocolate Pudding Day, National Handshake Day, and the magnificently passive-aggressive Take Back the Lunch Break Day.

Let’s dive in spoon-first.

🍫 National Chocolate Pudding Day

Ah, chocolate pudding. The dessert of school cafeterias, hospital trays, and divorced dads trying their best. It’s smooth, it’s creamy, it’s never been accused of being too sophisticated—and frankly, that’s its charm. Somewhere between mousse and regret lies chocolate pudding, and on June 24, we give it the respect it so thoroughly deserves.

Sure, it’s not exactly crème brûlée, but it doesn’t ask you to be. Chocolate pudding doesn’t require a blowtorch, a ramekin, or even the dignity of being served in anything other than a plastic cup with a foil lid. And honestly? Good. Life is hard enough without feeling judged by your dessert.

Want to celebrate properly? Toss one in your lunch bag. Eat it at 9 a.m. like a renegade. Serve it in wine glasses at dinner and call it deconstructed flourless cake—nobody will question you. Especially if they’re still chewing those chewy chicken thighs from Sunday meal prep.

Or better yet, make it from scratch. Yes, I said it. Make. It. From. Scratch. Dust off that cornstarch and remind yourself what a double boiler looks like. In a world obsessed with shortcuts and AI-written love letters, stirring a pot of pudding the old-fashioned way might be the most rebellious thing you do all week.

🤝 National Handshake Day

Remember handshakes? Those awkward sweaty palm-to-palm rituals we all forgot how to do properly during the pandemic? Well, they’re back, baby. And apparently, they’ve got their own holiday. June 24 is National Handshake Day—a time to grasp hands, meet eyes, and pretend we all weren’t just using hand sanitizer as body spray 18 months ago.

But let’s be real. The handshake is an art form. There’s the too-firm power grip (hello, mid-tier salesmen everywhere), the limp fish (looking at you, Chad in accounting), and the classic miss-the-timing-and-slap-their-fingers situation that ruins your confidence for days.

Some say a good handshake can make or break a first impression. I say a bad one can haunt your dreams like an unpaid credit card bill. So use this day to refine your technique. Practice with a friend. Practice with a broom handle. Practice with your dog. Just don’t go in too strong—nobody wants to feel like they’re shaking hands with a bear trap.

And for the love of all that is holy, look people in the eye when you shake hands. If I wanted to feel the dead-eyed grip of indifference, I’d hug my ex.

🥪 Take Back the Lunch Break Day

Now here’s a holiday I can truly get behind. Take Back the Lunch Break Day is the spiritual cousin of “I’m going to Target and you can’t stop me” energy. It’s a nationwide rebellion against sad desk lunches, microwave queues, and Slack messages that say “real quick” (they’re never real quick).

This day is about reclaiming 60 minutes of legally mandated food-consumption time that was slowly siphoned away by workaholic culture and bad managers who think urgency is a personality.

The idea? Step away. Just… walk away. Go eat outside. Go eat anything that wasn’t cooked in a communal breakroom microwave next to someone reheating salmon. You are more than your inbox. You are more than the “quick sync” your boss scheduled at 12:03 p.m. You are a person who deserves to eat something warm, preferably with utensils.

And let’s face it, most of our best ideas come when we’re not staring at our screens wondering why Excel just deleted three hours of work. Take the break. Eat the sandwich. Live your life.

So, What Have We Learned?

If June 24 teaches us anything, it’s that joy doesn’t always come from big flashy moments. Sometimes, it’s a plastic cup of pudding, a confident handshake, and a blissful hour away from the soul-sucking vortex of office small talk. Sometimes, it’s just silly little holidays that give you permission to act like a human again.

So go ahead—celebrate all three. Shake a hand. Take your lunch. Eat that pudding. And if anyone gives you grief about it, tell them Georgia Dale said so.

And then shake their hand.

With chocolate pudding on yours.

You’re welcome.