This story is taken from my upcoming book of surreal anecdotes and short fairy tales for adults called "The Mundane Uses of Magical Objects"
The International Day of Laziness was once known by several names, including the International Day Of Doing Nothing or IDODN. The other names thankfully fell out of use because it was difficult to remember them while dealing with clever acronyms and any ideas at all seemed to defeat the purpose of such a day. So only International Day Of Laziness stuck around, monikered soon just as IDOL by the lazy public (which of course didn't see the irony and was comfortable to not have to decipher the name further once it forgot the full version).
In danger of outlasting the good will of you, the reader, who would certainly rather do nothing, but is forced to continue reading by the incessant flow of addictive letters that seem to follow each other and make relative sense - we shall now forget the dicussion of the day's name and proceed to fulfill its intended function - mainly to do as little as possible from this moment on.
But first, let us tell you a secret learned by generations of our laziest citizens who passed it along through occasional bouts of incoherent mumbling.
The secret of doing nothing successfully and to your utmost satisfaction is in making the Nothing seem like Something!
For instance, you can stick your finger into a pot of dirt and keep it there for as long as you wish, all the time feeling the cold coarseness of the ground and thinking about other places that are cold and coarse in which you had your finger. Or if the ground was moist and warm - you can send your thoughts in that direction. Just close the door first.
Another useful suggestion is to lie down on your back on a nice tuft of soft green grass as clouds pass overhead. And then to follow the passing clouds of your choice with your eyes until they get too far to be discernible from the rest of the stuff floating up in the sky. At which point you just easily give up and pick some new ones to follow, while congratulating yourself for keeping your country safe through cloud surveillance.
Or in another stab at celebrating IDOL properly, you may be advised to write something like this here, a collection of amusing turns of phrase that tickle the feet of wisdom, but really don't mean much and do BLISSFULLY ABSOLUTELY UNEQUIVOCALLY STUPENDOUSLY NOTHING!
If you like this story, you can check out another one here.